FIRE meet-up (2) Amsterdam with JL Collins

JL Collins (Jim) enjoyed his FIRE meet-up Amsterdam on the 20th July 2019 so much that he wanted to do another one. Woohooh!

Here’s the recording for you te enjoy: (I don’t have professional equipment and unfortunately there was a lot of background noise this time. Sorry about that, folks!)

My questions were the same as last week, plus one funny (at least, I like to think so) extra question in the end. Even if you already listened to the first recording of the FIRE meet-up Amsterdam, I think you’ll still find some nuggets in the second one even though the questions are the same. The questions that I asked Jim:

<01:15> Which personal decision you made has had the biggest impact on your path to FIRE?

<05:55> Which questions should somebody aspiring FIRE ask themselves at the start of and throughout their journey?

<08:40> You advised  your daughter to keep putting her money in the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund VTSAX. This is the fund she already owns and she should just keep adding to it. In which cases or trends would you advise her differently or change course? What signals should she look out for and what would you advise her to be a cross over point to something else? I know we can’t prepare for Black Swan events and flexibility is key.

<13:40> Recently Vanguard has indicated that they expect returns for the stock market over the next decade to be lower compared to the past couple of decades, about 5 percent annualized return instead of 8. What is your view on this statement and would you adjust your investment strategy if the stock market returns would drop considerably?

<17:00> The Dutch have to deal with a different kind of income and wealth tax system compared to Americans. What course of action would you advise the Dutch on their way to FIRE while dealing with things like capital gains tax and wealth tax?

<20:50> What lessons about money did your parents teach you?

<25:00> How do you and Jane talk about money and investing? And what kind of money and investment talk strategy would you advise couples who have just discovered the FIRE movement?

<31:45> Do you expect global trends like climate change to affect the stock market? Should an investor anticipate on these trends and if yes, how?

<34:45> Which topics are a waste of time to think about when pursuing FIRE?

<44:00>You mention Mike Tyson in your book? Has he ever gotten back to you?

From the audience (summarized by me):

<48:05> How do I invest wisely when I don’t like to think about investing all the time? Is it possible to reach FIRE without investing?

<54:30> What is your view on diversifying your investments between stocks, cash and real estate?*
* For the Dutchies around here I refered to the website geenbaanmeer.nl for more information on rental property investing in The Netherlands. You might want to go to one of his workshops.

<1:06:15> How does one meander in an ever evolving world as an early retiree? (Sorry about the blender in the background)**
In this part I mention Kristy Shen’s book, which is a must read: Quit Like a Millionaire

<1:14:45> How do you balance enjoying your money now and invest for your future self?

<1:19:40> How do you deal with the volatility of stocks compared to real estate?
In this part we mention Paula Pant’s blog Afford Anything.

<1:27:15> When and how do you add bonds to your portfolio when thinking about volatility?

<1:34:50> As a self-employed worker I have to keep money aside for taxes and it’s just sitting there earning next to nothing. What should I do?

<1:41:00> When do you know when enough is enough?

<1:46:45> How do you figure out what to retire towards?

The Amount We Saved In 2012

So, 2012 was an expensive year for us. We made some big purchases in January for our house. And we went on holiday to India, skiing in Austria and chilling in Germany. We only got back into our old frugal mode from a couple of years ago around mid-2012. Now that I have last year’s numbers I can see that we still managed to save/not spend a whopping 20% of our income that year!

Mr. Money Mustache thinks one should save 50%-75% of one’s income in order to retire really early. That triggered me into calculating whether we would be able to do such a thing. When I extract the outrageously expensive holidays and the one time purchases for our home we could be saving about 33% of our income. Wow, that sounds like fun and not too bad! Of course, our winter sport last week doesn’t help for this year’s total…

As a result I have put a new goal for 2013 on my list. Saving/not spending at least 30% of our income, which we’ll put into our mortgage.

I just keep on calculating percentages and I think it’s a lot of fun. I didn’t know we were doing so well, yay! Early retirement, here we come!

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

Retirement At 71.5?!

Today I read a Dutch article about the increase of retirement age in our country. Our government drew up some new rules. I already knew that my mother will retire at 66 and nine months but my father will retire at 67. They own their own business and my mother’s two years older than my father. Which basically means my mother has to work till she’s 69!

Anyway, for me it’s even worse. I am 31 years old now and I’ll be 32 in April this year. According to presumptions and calculations made in the article I will probably we awarded my pension at 71.5! This means I have another 40 years of labour to get through. I really can’t imagine doing what I am doing now at the age of 65 (which used to be the age for retirement)…let alone when I am 70 (if I live to see that age)!

All the more reason to keep on saving and investing for an early retirement!

What are things like in your country?

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

Early Retirement: How Does That Feel?

Hm…I don’t know the answer to that question just yet. However, I can imagine what it must feel like. Why? I work four days a week for my current employer instead of five.

I decided to work four days a week a couple of years ago already. I made this decision because the side business costs me about 10 hours a week. Monday is my day off and it is great. This doesn’t mean that I spend that whole day working on the side business. I own a webshop, so I spend 1 to 2 hours every day working on that business. Please note that this side business does not cause any stress, I find it fun and almost relaxing to do. Like I said before, it’s a hobby that yields money instead of costing a whole bunch of it. On Mondays I go grocery shopping, read a book, exercise, meet up with friends, finish chores around the house that one can’t get around to doing during the weekend and so on. It’s great!

This is what early retirement is all about, isn’t it? Being able to decide you don’t want to work full-time and have a great life while you’re at it. Of course, I don’t have enough “drop dead money” just yet, but I do have some of it. So if I would really really really hate my current job (which I don’t!) I could walk away and find another job. That feels goooood! So, I can thoroughly imagine the feeling a paid off mortgage and having enough drop dead money must feel like. There’s no going back to ridiculous spending habits anymore, I know where I am heading. Early retirement!

What about you?

Love,

Mrs Econowiser