About this blog

About Mr.FightToFIRE

Who am I? Besides the owner and main author of this blog, I’m also a 30-year-old Belgian IT professional working for a large European retail bank in Brussels for over 8 years. I work on IT projects of various sizes to develop customer-facing apps to support our clients in requesting banking products such as credit cards, loans, insurances, etc.

For now, I live in Belgium together with my wife in a cozy 40m² apartment. I have traveled around, seen various parts of India and the Americas but will always enjoy being comfy with the misses.

Me looking out towards the Taj Mahal — Me during my visit to the Taj Mahal in January 2018.

About the blog

Fight To FIRE is a Belgian personal finance blog about struggling to find the right path and reach the ultimate goal: Financial Independence/Retire Early (FIRE).

Ever since I started my professional carrier in 2012, I dreamed of becoming financially independent at an early age. But unfortunately, I have yet to achieve Financial Independence and Retire Early.

Forex failure in my 20s

Over many years, I tried different things to reach financial independence. One of them was Forex. Unfortunately, that didn’t yield the desired results. After over six years of trying, I decided to stop and focus on keeping it simple through stocks.

My forex journey left me financially scarred. I needed a place to write down my thoughts and to prevent making the same mistakes in the future. With my IT experience and working in a bank, I kickstarted this blog in September 2018.

FightToFIRE is a place I can call my own. A place where I can put my progress online, progress that I hope can help myself and you, my reader, will reach FIRE on this journey to Financial Independence. It allows me to put my thoughts and (investments) goals in writing, which should help me decide.
The second purpose is to provide a different view on how to achieve FI in Europe. There are already excellent sites available such as Mr. Money Mustache, Think Save Retire or Root of Good.
These blogs give excellent advice on FIRE and how to approach it, but they have an American perspective that doesn’t always apply to me, fellow Belgians, or European FIRE aficionados. For this reason, I hope I can add something meaningful to the Belgian fire movement, just like NoMoreWaffles, Dividend Cake, and many other blogs.

So, there you have it, my story. Even though I haven’t reached it (yet), I wish to become FIRE by 45 at the latest by fighting.

Now that you know where I come from, I invite you to join me and see where we end up.
Don’t hesitate to contact me to help me broaden my horizon on FIRE, provide improvements on how I should write something, or just anything you think can help me.

Featered on

Firehub.eu - Financial Independence hub of Europe

My monthly Savings Rate report: April 2022

May 30, 2022

Apologies I haven't been able to post much in recent weeks, but a lot has been going on. In the meantime, I found some time to provide you with my monthly Savings Rate. Since we were abroad from the 21st of April till the 5th of May this report will contain a higher expense in the holiday category as I put everything I spend during my trip there. On top of that, some of the shared expenses weren't paid back yet increasing this months expenses.

PA: The blog is alive but I’m struggling to post, here’s why

May 21, 2022

The blog is still alive! Sorry for the drama, but I felt I should at least write something. Don’t expect a new financial post, though. Just a quick personal update to get you up to speed since a lot has changed after I last posted. Changes preventing me from even sitting down at my computer and start typing. Nothing negative, quite the opposite, even.

My monthly Savings Rate report: March 2022

April 10, 2022

Quarter one of 2022 has passed with the end of March. Time seems to be flying by faster and faster as I get older. At times I'm happy about this, such as the current state of the world. I hope that as time progress there is light at the end of the tunnel. But at other times I just wish it didn't, like when I'm playing with my daughter. To help pass these relative times I receive a monthly salary from my employer, and this month is no different. Let's take a look at how I managed it this month.

Introducing Legal Insurance In Belgium: What You Need To Know

March 28, 2022

Legal insurance is something you only think about after a bad experience with the legal system. Due to an increased delay in the delivery of my turnkey apartment, I realized that even with all the research I did before signing the sales agreement, I could still end up in a legal battle. While it's now too late, I wanted to protect myself better in the future, so I bought legal insurance.

Where to get the cheapest furniture in Europe

March 16, 2022

Why am I looking at the cheapest way to buy furniture? My Brussels apartment is -finally- reaching the final stages of construction and while we are not quite there yet, it's about time to look at how I will furnish it. Having a fully furnished apartment should allow me to rent it out for about €1400/m incl. garage.

My monthly Savings Rate report: February 2022

March 9, 2022

February, the shortest month of the year is already behind us. The invasion of Russia into Ukraine this month is one for the history books. The only question is, how? Will it say that Russia won or Ukraine? And how will all of this impact the world, both humanitarian and economic? Against the backdrop of this hectic tragedy, I share my monthly expenses.