Adventures In Deep (Crypto) Space

Investing in digital - or crypto - currency is somewhat of a taboo in the FIRE community. Say Bitcoin and you are frowned upon. You want to be one of us?  Denounce your deeds of darkness! Repent your evil ways! Follow us on the true path to FIRE. I exaggerate. But we do pride ourselves on making …

Time-Weighted Return

I've been struggling a bit with keeping track of the performance of my portfolio and specific assets and asset classes that I own. I am not an accountant. My initial approach to measuring performance was to take the difference between current portfolio or holding value (V), subtract the amount I invested (I) and divide the …

Returns, Dividend Or Interest?

I found that many people appear to gravitate towards 'safe income' producing assets, like dividend-paying stocks. A dividend strategy can generate a "permanent" (more or less) form of income which can either be reinvested to boost wealth or be consumed without really impacting already accumulated wealth. Opting for a dividend strategy as opposed to relying on …

FIRE! The Ultimate Charts

What do you do if you aspire financial independence and early retirement and have a little time to spare? Do you go out to catch some rays? Or meet friends in town for a beer or two? Or will you just sit back and relax and feel fabulous because you know you're on your way …

About Tulip Mania And Other Bubbles

Amsterdam was even more glorious than in the postcards and wandering along its elaborate canal system with the narrow seventeenth and eighteenth century gabled merchant houses was like getting lost in a painting by a master of the Golden Age. It was astonishingly beautiful and romantic. Green, healthy trees lined the canals, shielding people from …

Financial Independence Abroad: Braga, Portugal

A shortcut to financial independence is cutting your costs (drastically). Easier said than done of course, but for those of us who live in (relative) expensive countries, moving to a cheaper place may be a way to achieve it. In the post series 'Financial Independence Abroad' I will put my investigative hat on and look …

Mintos Auto Invest Explained

In this post I will take a deep dive into the world of auto-investing on the Mintos crowdlending platform. It's a feature that allows you to let the platform invest your funds for you while you sit back and relax and  watch  your money grow. For those of you who are new to the concept …

Why Invest In Index Funds?

Investing isn't my second nature and I am scrambling up a steep learning curve to master the fundamentals. I sometimes feel like an inexperienced mountain climber who just realized he is afraid of heights while hanging off a cliff. The good news? While a mountaineer has little tolerance for mistakes, I can afford them. More …

Early Retirement: Could A Bad Sequence Of Returns Annihilate Your Portfolio?

You had done all the right calculations. At least that's what you thought. And according to the math the accumulated invested capital was exactly what you needed to bridge the years from your early retirement until full pension age. Even the average return was very close to what you had used in your formula's. But …

Financial Independence: Building your bridge

The other day I read a great post by another financial independence blogger. She wrote: There seem to be two camps. The first is that group of people who believe “that sounds about right” is more than adequate in terms of preparation. For them a rough 4% rule is all the calculation they need to …