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

We Are Going To Increase Our Monthly Investments!

Yay, the hubby is slowly but surely “getting it” 😉

He proposed to increase our monthly investments by 66%. Wootwoot! I’d still rather go for lump sum…but as explained many times…it’s our money and not just mine. This way we’ll actually start investing our lazy euros sitting in savings accounts. We’ll start as of next month. Yay!

We decided to dump all that extra money into Vanguard All World (VWRL) with BinckBank.

Love,

Mrs Econowiser

Is This The Crash We’ve Been Waiting For?

The stock market is tanking! Yes!

The hubby is more and more inclined to throw even bigger sums of money at the stock market.

I’d love to get that emergency fund down to 100% and the rest invested!

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

P.s. Right now our VWRL stocks have dropped under €50! For the first time in months! I’m going to transfer some cash to my investment account, ha!

Currency Exchange Expense?

Today the VWRL dividends were paid and rolled into my BinckBank account. However, I expected to receive €0.25 for each stock. I got €0.24521 for each stock instead. Huh? I phoned BinckBank and they said it had to do with the exchange rate. Dividends are paid in another currency (dollars in this case) and then have to be converted to euros. So the announcement of the dividends being paid is more of a good guess…it could still be higher or lower.

Do you think the explanation this BinckBank employee gave me is the correct version?

It’s not the 15% dividend tax, which was his first guess (but those numbers didn’t add up anyway) before investigating the situation.

Oh dear, another effect to bear in mind…

The good news is: I bought another batch of shares. Yay!

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

September Is “My Month” To Invest With Vanguard…Should I Wait For The Dividend Payment?

So, September is “my month” to buy Vanguard VWRL stocks. I know dividend will be paid at the end of this month. Should I wait for the dividend payment and automatically reinvest that, or should I invest the money now (and receive more dividend?).

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

P.s. #pregnant #tired #hungry #fat … #BLESSED <3<3<3

57%!

August 2014
Mortgage: 32.4 (0.22% increase)
Emergency fund: 396% (2% decrease, due to money going towards stocks)
Stash (=EF + stocks): 12.86% 12.07% (0.79% increase due to investments and the bullish stock market)
Income to spending ratio this month: 57% (yeah! Even with the husband going to a 3-day music festival and spending lots on drinks and food)
Income to spending ratio this year: 61% (<60% here we come!)

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

Windfall

This week I received another windfall. This will increase our ‘stash by 1.7%. (100% is the number at which we’ll declare ourselves FI) So, yeah, this certainly helps!

The minute I saw it on my bank account I transferred it to my savings account. We’re still sticking to buying stocks on a monthly basis instead of dumping most of our ‘stash into it in one go. In the meantime VWRL stocks are almost €53 each. Yikes!

When is that damn crash coming? 😉

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

The Numbers Are In

June 2014
Mortgage: 32.1% (0.3% increase)
Emergency fund: 341% (we keep on throwing cash at our stocks on a monthly basis, but it will take a while before we get this down to 100%)
Stash: 11.04% (0.27% increase. FI, here we come! F-you money rocks!)
Income to spending ratio this month: 67% (hm…where did that money go? We went to a music festival, got an indoor skiing membership for two months during the summer and bought lots of organic products like nappies and shower gel. That money wasn’t wasted from our point of view…however these expenses won’t help getting FI sooner…)
Income to spending ratio this year: 58% (Ow, yeah!!! <60% here we come!!!)

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

Index Investing: Another Lesson Learnt (Or: Learned For Americans ;-))

Phew…so I was bitchin’ about the fact that VWRL was too pricey at €49.50. Well…it only went up (of course). I put in an order at €50 and bought a shitload. So did the hubby. That was his investment for April, which was long overdue. It was my investment for May.

It does become difficult when human emotions come into the equation. And waddayaknow? You can’t get around that factor! Market timing is something we shouldn’t be doing. We tried it. We didn’t like it. And from now on we’ll stick to the game plan. Promised. Each month we’ll invest a set amount of cash into VWRL. Period. For real.

It’s the hubby’s turn in June and mine again in July.

This is exactly why I love our automatic investment scheme with Meesman.

However, we insist on investing with Vanguard as well. And I haven’t found an automatic way to do this on a monthly basis (yet). This means we have to buy the stocks manually every month and that means we get to see the prices and stuff. Oh well…this “investment problem” of ours is not the end of the world now, is it?

Thanks for all your feedback and keeping us on the right track when it comes to euro cost averaging.

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

Just Figuring Things Out

So, yesterday I explained a new strategy. The husband and myself were not very sure about it either. We’re just trying different things out. I got a number of responses in Dutch. For readers who can’t read Dutch: they don’t like this new strategy. Just buy the funds when you want to buy them against the going rate. This way we’re already euro cost averaging, so we shouldn’t be worried about the price we’re paying. Another smart remark was that the money was just sitting in an account now, without earning any interest or dividend. Yeah, that’s also true. Someone else said that stock prices usually go up after payday, which is just about now. So it would be better to invest between the 5th and 10th day of each month. And Frenchie’s comment is also very true!

Guess I am a slow learner?? 😉 It’s the human emotions that get in the way. That’s why I’d like to automate these things as much as possible. This is already the case with Meesman, but I can’t do this with BinckBank. Except for wiring the money to BinckBank on a monthly basis. Well, that’s the first step!

The husband was also determined on buying stocks in April, because it’s “his month”. And today is the last day of April, so he’s going to buy them today.

I guess the new strategy isn’t a brilliant move after all. We could put in an order like this at the start of each month and if we didn’t manage to buy stocks at a lower price we should still buy at the going  rate on day 8, 9 or 10 of that month.

Thanks for all your feedback!

We are going to get this investment vehicle going! Yes, don’t wait, invest!

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser