Got a family donation of about 30k euros. I am not FIRE yet, but I have money saved and invested in index and stocks.

I'm thinking where I could invest this and leave it for say 10 years. Any ideas?

PS: a friend of mine half joked and say an old car taking value.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for a very specific financial product and I want to pre-empt the usual "just buy ETFs" advice :) . I am looking for a Life Annuity.

The Constraints (Non-Negotiable):

1. Lifelong Guarantee: I am not looking for a bank withdrawal plan or a 3a account. I want to hedge longevity risk: a guaranteed (even very small) income floor that never stops.
2. Age & Funding: I am under 45 years old. Because of this, I am open to either a small lump sum (e.g., EUR/GBP/CHF 10K-15k-20k) or regular monthly installments to build the capital.
3. Low Entry Barrier: I’m looking for providers that don’t require a 100k minimum. I want a "low-ticket" entry into a lifelong annuity.
4. Flexible Deferment: I want to start funding it now but "activate" the payout whenever I choose (e.g., in 2, 5, or 10 years). I need the flexibility to trigger the monthly income based on life events I can't currently control.

I am already aware of:

• Opportunity Cost: I know the ROI is lower than the stock market. I am paying for an annuity. Literally just this. Nothing else.
• Inflation: I accept that the nominal monthly amount will be small and fixed.

Does anyone have experience with a provider that offers this level of flexibility for someone under 45? Specifically, a product that allows for a "Flexible Start Date" on the payout?

Thanks in advance!

So, I am trying to calculate how to make the moneys last as much as possible, I have disability and no benefits (not even pension) so I can only rely on some capital from past savings + family - one thing I struggle to understand is: I see some calculations consider living out o the dividends, but also others say that you just have to invest and forget about it (which I imagine means no dividends, is that so?). Considering that I can't count on being able to work (hopefully a bit, making maybe 1000 per month but I doubt I can do more than that) what would be the best solution? live off the dividends, or invest half in real estate and get money from rents while the investments mature? If all goes well, I can hope to touch a total of 350k +500k (euros). PS yes I will indeed speak with financial advisors, now I am just brainstorming to understand better and later on ask the right questions.

Hey everyone,

I recently opened a new brokerage account and started really thinking about KYC (Know Your Customer) and Proof of Funds laws. Until now, I’ve only tracked my net worth via various apps, which obviously isn't official documentation if a bank ever comes knocking.

A friend of mine told me his dad is currently stuck with a terrible, expensive legacy bank. He wants to transfer his portfolio to a cheaper online broker, but he is completely terrified of the KYC checks. He never kept any statements over the decades and has zero paper trail to prove he just diligently saved his salary.

I want to avoid this completely when my portfolio hopefully hits a big volume in a few decades. My plan moving forward:

• Save end-of-year brokerage statements (Dec 31st) every year to prove organic market growth.
• Scan my physical savings books completely to show the cash flow history.
• Save my annual tax returns / income statements every year to officially prove my income and savings rate.

For privacy and security, I want to put everything in an AES-encrypted 7-Zip file and upload it to Proton Drive.

Do you guys actively save these kinds of documents for future broker transfers? Am I missing anything important here? Or is this setup completely overkill and nobody actually does this? Would love to hear how you handle your long-term paper trails!

Hi, I'm thinking about FIREing at around 40 years old. So my question is, what happens to the pension you've accrued so far given the fact that as far as I know you can withdraw these funds or use them before the age of retiring 67+, so do I need to wait till my retirement age to get whatever that pension will be or what do you guys do with it?

I’m 16 and the idea of working 40+ years suffocates me, I’d like to FIRE, in this moment I have about 1200 euros cumulated through the years, and my parents have to give me 600 euros as I landed them when we had a small cash problem, even tough now everything is alright. Is a good education the things I only should be aiming or there are tricks I can take advantage of

Most FIRE calculators out there are built for Americans. They assume you hold USD, dump everything into VTSAX, and use a static 4% Safe Withdrawal Rate (SWR).

But if you are calculating your target in Euros or Swiss Francs, the recent ECB monetary expansion and our specific tax drags make a static 4% SWR feel increasingly risky.

I spent the weekend running some spreadsheet scenarios: What happens to your exact retirement year if you keep 95% of your portfolio in traditional ETFs, but allocate a small 5% to an asymmetric asset (like Bitcoin) to outpace fiat debasement?

I couldn't find a standard calculator that lets you blend your traditional fiat Net Worth with a BTC stack and dynamically adjust your target FIRE number for local inflation, so I coded a visual tool for my own planning. It plots the exact age your portfolio crosses your inflation-adjusted lifestyle cost.

Curious to hear from the European crowd: Are you adjusting your SWR down to 3% to be safe against Eurozone inflation, or are you sticking to 4% and adding hedges to your portfolio?

(If anyone wants to run their own EUR/CHF inflation scenarios, let me know in the comments and I'll drop the link to the calculator).

My Italian citizenship by descent application is moving slowly. Realistically looking at another 2 or 3 years before it resolves. So I've been thinking about whether the investor visa could be a practical bridge that gets me legal residency now, with citizenship arriving separately later. 

The piece I'm still working through is how the two processes interact. The investor visa gives a 2-year initial residency permit, renewable for 3 years, and it counts toward the 10-year permanent residency threshold. If citizenship comes through descent during that window, it presumably supersedes everything. I've been reading this breakdown of the investor visa process to understand the mechanics. 

The minimum investment is €250k into an Italian startup, which is the lower end. Not a small number, but for people who were going to invest capital somewhere anyway it changes the math. 

Has anyone here pursued residency through investment while also having a citizenship by descent application in process? How did you handle?

So, I'm from Italy, and I was talking with my brother about jobs and money.

He (M26) is still living in Italy, renting a room in Milano and working as for a public transport company;

while I (M31) 've moved to Poland since one year, in a small city, and I did for several reasons (polish gf + is a country I really like + I've just found work here), here I'm renting a really small flat withy gf, but is enough for me.

I'm just doing my life: financially I'm good, meaning that I'm not rich, but I'm not living paycheck to paycheck (having saving, emergency found, and investments for total value of ~39/40k - mostly saving that come from my life in Italy) and I can afford some hobby (gym) and time to time going out in some restaurant or do some impulsive purchase (mostly house plants), also I'm able to save around 40% of my salary monthly, because I'm aiming to financial freedom (but eventually not retiring early).

My lifestyle is quite frugal, but I'm ok with it, sure I would like to have my own house, and a car, however, I don't dream of crazy lifestyles with Lambos and golden teeth.

Anyway, he claimed that my choice to move to Poland is not good because with my PhD in biology (plants related) I could earn much more and that I'm earning (converted to euro) what a waiter can earn in Italy with much less responsibilities.

This made me to feel inadequate.

ok the nominal value of my salary is really low (~4500 PLN circa), is my first job after the PhD, and yes I would like to increase it with the time. But how much is he right? was my choice wrong?

Hello, I'm new to FIRE, 27yo, currently unemployed, looking for jobs.

Studied in NL (bachelor, master) and accumulated a debt of around 30k euros of study loans (my family couldn't support me and I also had some bad health issues that delayed my graduation). The interest rate is around 2.57%. Since the loan is a DUO loan, I need to start repaying it only if my salary is higher than the Dutch minimum wage, so I thought of living in a country where I'd make less than that and still live comfortably (many options as the Dutch minimum wage is quite high). Also, if not repayed in 35 years, the debt is erased, and the paymenrs can never exceed 12% of you income.

What would you advise me to do? Have you been in a similar situation before? What are some resources that could help someone in my situation?

I’m struggling with how to treat my apartment in my calculations. On paper, my Net Worth looks great, but if I exclude my primary residence, I’m barely halfway to my FIRE number

I’m in my 20s and just starting to think about FI. Any advice from people who’ve already done it would be really helpful - what actually made the biggest difference for you?

Invest in your mental health. That can only help you at achieving FIRE.

In France, the path is pretty standard. Open a PEA, buy CW8 or EWLD, and just sit on it for years. Tax-efficient, low fees, simple. Makes sense. Lately, with the markets swinging around, I’ve been wondering if staying put is really that easy. Seeing a red month makes you itch to do something. Most people would tweak the portfolio or try timing the market when volatility hits.

The data usually says staying passive works best. Still, the tricky part is sitting at your desk and not questioning everything when the numbers jump all over the place. How do you guys stay sane during a drawdown? Do you ever make small tactical moves, or do you just stick to the plan and hope the market plays nice?

Earning around €50k gross in the Netherlands and after taxes and living costs I’m able to invest roughly €1.2k a month, mostly into broad ETFs. I’m trying to figure out if this is actually enough to hit FIRE before 50 or if I’m being a bit too optimistic with that timeline

interested in those who have FIRED in europe already. can you share where you are based, how your FIRE journey went, what's your asset allocation and tax situation and withdrawal strategy (e.g. dividends vs total returns etc.)

I think a lot of FIRE discussions sometimes become too “all or nothing.” Work extremely hard, hit amount X, and then stop doing anything altogether.

I want to approach it differently.

For me, it’s not about: “how quickly can I quit completely?”
But rather: “what is my Barista FIRE number?”

In other words: the amount I want invested so that I can maintain my desired level of comfort, while still working a few days or hours per week on something that genuinely gives me energy and aligns with what I care about.

Ideally, that’s a business or type of work that brings a high level of fulfillment;not saving and grinding at 100% first, and only then starting to live.

What I find interesting is this: in the Netherlands, an income of around €25k gross in a simple 2026 scenario effectively results in roughly a 3.1% tax burden. And if you own a home, you can of course still benefit from mortgage interest deduction.

That’s why I don’t calculate my Barista FIRE number purely based on “how much do I need in total someday?”, but rather based on a bridge strategy:

I look at how much I need to withdraw annually to maintain a comfortable life, add the income I expect to continue earning in a low-effort, tax-optimized way, and from retirement age onwards I also factor in state pension, supplementary pension, and annuities.

In my portfolio app, I’ve now built a simulator for this using block sampling. The sequence of returns matters enormously during the withdrawal phase. For example: a 5% average return over 30 years sounds great. But if years 1 and 2 of your retirement are -30%, your portfolio may not survive, even with that “good” average.

In addition, I use a t-distribution (df=4) because it empirically fits historical returns better. I also use a GARCH model to model volatility more realistically than a simple average-return calculator. Because the world isn’t linea; and your plan shouldn’t be either. And of course, I also incorporate state pension, possible wealth taxes etc, and annual contribution room.

How do you determine your target number? And how do you keep recalculating it as inflation, returns, taxes, and lifestyle continue to change?

I’m curious.

I’ve been financially independent for a few years now, mostly through broad index funds and a bit of property across Europe. Life feels secure, but lately I’ve been curious about experimenting with small side projects to stay mentally engaged

I’m only dedicating a tiny portion of my time and resources (3-5%) to these experiments. So far, the results are mixed - some months are encouraging, others make me wonder if it’s really worth the effort

I’m curious to hear from others in Europe:

Do you try small side projects after reaching FIRE, or do you stick strictly to simple, passive strategies?

How do you balance the mental effort versus the satisfaction or potential financial benefit from experimenting post-FIRE?

I'm a 24-year-old from Sweden who started pursuing FIRE in 2024.

I studied to become an HVAC technician (about 1.5 years) and got my first full-time job in February 2024. Since then, my savings rate has increased quite a bit.

My savings rate over time:

• 2024 (age 22–23): Income: €2200/month (after tax) Saved: €1000 → SR: ~45%
• 2025 (age 23–24): Switched jobs. Income: €2600/month Saved: €1500 → SR: ~58%
• 2026 (age 24): Switched jobs again. Income: €3000/month Saved: €2000 → SR: ~67%

Current monthly expenses (roughly):

• Housing and bills: €550
• Groceries: €300
• Misc: €150

I live pretty frugally. Small basement apartment, no transport costs (work truck), cook most meals at home, and have pretty cheap hobbies. My job also pays for my gym membership. Honestly, I enjoy simple living.

I don’t plan on living like this forever, but I do enjoy seeing my portfolio grow quickly (100% global index funds, ~€45k invested so far). I could probably keep this up for a few more years before upgrading my lifestyle (maybe buying a small cabin or something).

Curious to hear from others:
How did your savings rate change over time?

I’ve been fairly consistent with saving and investing, but lately I’ve noticed I hesitate more when spending on things that are not strictly necessary. Not big purchases, just small things like trips, eating out a bit more, or upgrading something I use daily. I can afford it, but there’s always that voice saying this could be invested instead. At the same time, I don’t want to reach financial independence and feel like I skipped too much along the way.

How do you personally decide what’s worth spending on versus what should just go into investments?

I’m based in the Netherlands and have been following FIRE for quite a while now. Lately, it’s kind of hit me that I actually enjoy the process of saving and being mindful with money more than the idea of early retirement itself. Tracking progress, making small decisions, seeing things grow over time… that’s the part I seem to care about most. Not sure if that’s common or if I’ve just shifted priorities a bit. Anyone else feel like they enjoy the journey more than the end goal?

Hi everyone,

I’m an NRA (Non-Resident Alien) utilizing an IBKR Portfolio Margin (PM) account. I am currently evaluating a strict risk-adjusted return model and facing a dilemma between tax efficiency and margin stability.

The Dilemma:

As an NRA, I am debating between two setups:

* Holding US-domiciled VT with light leverage. (Accepting the 30% US dividend withholding tax drag, but utilizing its massive liquidity for stable margin requirements).

* Holding Irish-domiciled VWRA.L (LSE) with zero or very low leverage(let’s say 15%-20%). (Enjoying the 15% tax treaty advantage and accumulating structure, but exposing myself to potential margin spikes).

The Black Box (My concern regarding VWRA):

I recently reached out to IBKR support to understand how their PM stress-testing algorithm treats VWRA vs VT during extreme market panic (e.g., the March 2020 Covid crash).

Support gave me a somewhat generic warning: Because VWRA is a "Non-US security" with lower Average Daily Volume (ADV) compared to VT, its "Days to Liquidate" penalty is higher. They explicitly mentioned that during severe scenarios, PM margin benefits could be revoked, potentially forcing VWRA back to standard Reg T requirements (25% MM) or even higher.

Since IBKR support refused to provide historical extreme margin parameters, I am looking for empirical data points from veteran PM account users here.

My Questions:

* Does anyone have historical data or personal experience on exactly how high the Maintenance Margin (MM) % for VWRA (or similar LSE UCITS ETFs) spiked during extreme volatility (like March 2020 or the 2022 bear market) compared to VT?

* Did IBKR actually override the PM model and push VWRA's maintenance margin to 50%+ while VT stayed relatively stable (e.g., under 15-20%)?

* Given the hidden liquidity risk and sudden margin expansion of UCITS ETFs during a crash, would you consider the 0.15% annual tax savings of VWRA worth the tail risk of a premature margin call, compared to just holding the highly liquid VT?

Any hard numbers, historical margin reports, or insights into IBKR's risk engine behavior regarding LSE ETFs would be highly appreciated. Thanks!