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

2021 In Review: A Mind-blowing And Financially Successful Year

January 27, 2022

2022 is over 3 weeks old now so I had some time to review 2021. I'm not only going to review my portfolio but also the milestones I set myself. Throughout 2021, I updated my milestones, but now it's time to hold them against the light and see which milestones I reached in the end.

My monthly Savings Rate report: December 2021

January 18, 2022

December was, on all accounts, a special month. It’s, of course, the last month of the year, but also in terms of expenses and income. We traveled to South America to visit my wife’s family, the in-laws. Suffice to say, this had a major impact on my expenses but not because of the airplane as this was already paid for a couple of months before, no, it was groceries, a 4-day resort trip, and even some baby stuff.

Curve Card Review: The best Card To Rule Them All!

January 6, 2022

My Curve Debit MasterCard is in my possession for over a month now, so I figured I’d share my experience with everyone having it used both in Belgium and abroad (in South America). Eventhough it's only been 1 month, this card has been impressive, to say the least. Thanks to unique features and ease of use it's a must-have for everyone!

Happy 2022

January 1, 2022

Best wishes to all of my readers. May all your financial and personal goals be achieved this year. That we get at least one step closer to FIRE in 2022!

Merry Christmas 2021!

December 26, 2021

Merry Christmas (2021) to all of my readers and visitors to the blog. Have a wonderful but above all healthy holiday period.

Is prinicpal payment a saving or expense?

December 23, 2021

One major item is never present in every monthly savings rate report: my mortgage principal payment. Omitting this one item makes the difference between having 50% or 30%. So, am I cheating by leaving it out? Today I want to go over the details of my mortgage payment and give a clear answer to this question.