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With no quarterly report to speak of during all of 2022, it's a bit silly to split up the past year now, especially since it would be challenging to find the exact numbers of my crypto positions; instead, I'll be giving you a long-awaited update on my personal portfolio for the entirety of 2022!

After my last update, I couldn't give any more visual updates as everything continued inside, where I was prohibited from entering alone. On top of that, I was busy preparing for significant professional changes, and our daughter still proved to be a bad sleeper giving us very little sleep and time in the evening. But I'm happy to announce the apartment is finished as of July 2022!

This month was a very tough one financially. I had to take out all the cash I had left to pay for the last bills of the apartment, which was not enough, but more about that later. Luckily, these are the last main expenses for the apartment. I even got the excellent news someone has already rent it out, starting in September, for €1250. Besides the finalization of my apartment, this month is notable for another reason. It’s my last month as an employee!

With a lot of things going on at the same time these past few months, I haven't had the time to write anything. As a result, this Savings Rate report is more than three months behind. Eventhough it's been so long, I still want to catch up and have a complete year overview by the end of 2022. To that end, I'm sharing the month of June. I saw some significant evolutions in terms of expenses due to some major changes in my financial situation.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

While I was still able to report the first half of 2021, ever since my daughter came into my life, I lacked the time to create a Q3 report. As such, this report will be for the last half of 2021, i.e., Q3 and Q4.

January, the first month of a new year. A fresh start, and what a start? There were some surprises this month I didn't foresee. Some with a positive, some with a negative impact on my portfolio.

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.

For those looking to invest for the first time, it's essential to look at what happens if you put your money in a regular savings account. A lot of people do this for fear of losing all their money. However, most of the interest you earn is lost due to inflation.

November was a hectic month. Corona is back from having never left, working from home is the default again and our daughter turned 6 (months). Most of these things didn't have much of an impact on us personally -besides our daughter of course-, but financially it was a bit more expensive since we decided to use HelloFresh for the first time and we ordered takeaway twice. I also made use of Black Friday to get a headphone + microphone combo.

With October passed, we are well into the last part of the year. It means I'm getting closer to my trip abroad and thus the first flight with our daughter. Because it was calm and some nice extra income, our Savings Rate greatly recovered.

My September reached an extreme expense level. And it's all due to one thing: plane tickets. I recently wrote about why we decided to buy plane tickets at arguably the most expensive period to fly, especially international. Because of this major purchase, my expenses skyrocketed and made me go negative for the first time since I started blogging. But, it's not the only thing that pushed me over the edge.

Even though we are almost at the end of Q3, I still want to take the time to cover Q2 of 2021 if only to keep continuity. With the pandemic in the West almost behind us, Q2 turned out to be pretty good investment-wise. I made nice gains even though I didn't make any deposits to my investment accounts.

With the end of August, we can almost say goodbye to summer. This year that's not such a bad thing with a sluggish summer not giving many possibilities to go out and corona still around us. Luckily, this did positively affect the Savings Rate, which is well above 50% this month.

Wow, what expensive this has been. I honestly never would have thought that July would net me 0 euros! Where did all my money go this month?!

Having a newborn in the house really makes it hard to find the time to write. Luckily I do still find it -albeit less for now- and I'm happy I can share another solid month of Savings with you.

The May overview took way longer than expected thanks to the arrival of our little girl! When looking back at May, I originally thought this was going to be a difficult month in terms of Savings Rate due to the medical checks, but I forgot that the medical bills are a month behind so it's actually June that gets the expensive ones. Additionally, the actual delivery is covered by my health insurance. So, how did May go in the end?

April was amazing! From both an income and expenses point of view, I was able to achieve my best result in months. The Belgian government played a huge part in this. Of course, cutting expenses helped a lot as well giving us this splendid SR. Or am I cheating a bit?

Q1 2021 ends much like last year's Q1 ended in the middle of a pandemic. One full year of the corona pandemic; crazy to think a year ago, it all started. Now with the first quarter of 2021 finished, it's time to take another look at my portfolio and see how it faired during these challenging times. Did my portfolio continue to rocket to the moon, or did it orbit a bit and crash back down?

March turned out to be a good month for my Savings Rate.  While on the expenses side I spend a lot on the home and ownership part and again on food, I also received a nice extra on the income side thanks to evening deployments for work. I ended up doing a bit of nightly work between 1 am and 3 am.

2021 really kicked into high gear this month. While we didn't go on holiday due to Corona, we did make rather large expenses for something life-changing. I'm talking about the baby of course.

A new year, a new start of my monthly Savings Reports. Will this new start be a better one than last year or will it be barely positive like last year? time to dive into my January expenses and find out!

My third financial look ahead, this time for the year 2021. It has the same goal as the last one. I want to share my expectations for this year and use this as the Kickstarter to create my targets or milestones.

The fourth quarter is already more than 2 weeks behind us but due to an increasing workload and my Spanish classes, I wasn't able to get to my quarterly report. Luckily I found some time so let us jump right into it!

December, the month of Christmas and New Years'. Lots of celebrations meaning some bigger expenses. This wasn't any different this year even with corona. We just did it on our own and just handed over the gifts outside. We went a little wild with food but my income was higher so it balanced things out a little bit.

Another rather calm month. Both in terms of expenses and income. It will make for a rather concise monthly overview. I am currently on-call again but because the last week is partly in December I will only get paid at the of the month so expect to see a bigger salary by the end of the year. For now, it's my base salary.

I covered why you should(n’t) get a turnkey apartment, but what if you get one? The purchase of a turnkey apartment is a major decision that can save you a lot of time and headache if you keep these 9 tips into account (+ one extra at the end!). It are points I looked out for before I signed the sales agreement way back in June.

Nothing happened! A strange thing to be excited about, right? Well, after quite some busy months, it's a nice change of pace I'd say. Though it's not really true if I'm honest.

The third quarter is already more than 2 weeks behind us but due to an increasing workload and my Spanish classes, I wasn't able to get to my quarterly report. Luckily I found some time so let us jump right into it!

We use it every day for a wide variety of purposes. It's used for drinking, washing, rinsing, showering, etc. Much of it is consumed for food and other goods, some of which require it in vast quantities. In short, we cannot do without it. I'm talking about water, of course. But is it worth investing in it?

Higher medical costs, a major milestone with my apartment, and continuous investments in my blog, that is a good summary of September. All of this and more gave me a good but still not amazing September Savings Rate.

A couple of weeks have passed and the construction is making good progress. The foundation and base plate is placed. How do I know? As the project progress, I receive invoices for said construction. Last week Friday I received the invoice for the finalization of the foundation works.

Garage boxes are known as a carefree real estate investment with a high return.

August was a bit more expensive than expected. Mainly because the summer sales got moved to this month. I tried my best not to fall for the tricks they try to apply every year and I think I succeeded very well. But even then, I did buy a few things I needed.

If you would have told me 2 years ago I was going to get a turnkey home, I'd have a good laugh and move on. In my mind, I had already worked out that I wanted my house to be build from scratch or at least heavily renovated to modern standards. Boy, was I wrong. I ended up getting one as my first property.

If I had to describe July in one month it would be 'fun'. Bit of a weird thing to say during a pandemic, no? Thanks to a couple of trips and celebrating my wife's graduation from her Master (yeaaaah! well done!) we were able to forget the return of the coronavirus.

Quarter two was just as much of a thrill ride as Q1 but in reverse. We went from a bear market to new highs in a matter of weeks instead of months or years. The question is though, is this move sustainable? For the moment the sharp recovery results in an excellent recovery of my portfolio across the board.

After a live-changing May, June was a lot less crazy. That is not to say that nothing happened in June. I actually invested quite a bit in the site. These investments made my SR drop but thanks to my holiday pay, I was able to keep the damage to a minimum.

As eluded to last month, May was a life-changing month. I even received a little surprise windfall at the end thanks to my grandmother's inheritance. With all of the preparations done in April, May was relatively calm in terms of expenses. This further improved my Savings Rate and pushed it to an all-time high. 

Isn't it frustrating to see how something like having your bank statements be automatically imported into your favorite banking app isn't possible because the banks aren't opening up? Well, Europe has you covered. With the new Payment Services Directive (Directive 2015/2366, 2015), usually shortened to PSD2.

Gold is well known as the safe haven in times of economic turmoil. But what about it's lesser know but more expensive and rare (metal) sibling palladium (not to be mistaken with platinum)? And what about white gold? Could these be an interesting alternative to gold, especially in these difficult and stressful times?

YNAB, short for You Need A Budget, stopped YNAB4 support on 31 October 2019. Being a user for +7 years I had to decide. pay nYNAB subscription or use Excel.

April was the prelude to a life-changing May. Quite a few preparations were made in April for a big moment in May so it's only a given that some money was spent. Add to that the higher grocery expenses due to the corona measures and you can already guess that April wasn't a cheap month. Luckily I received my profit participation which prevented me from going negative.

Because of lockdown and social distancing rules, many constructions sites have come to a halt. Just like my newly bought, yet to be completed apartment. I mailed my contractor to see what the impact will be for the Brussel’s apartment. I expect a half evasive answer saying they’ll do their utmost best to limit the impact but ”a small” delays might be possible.

The first quarter of 2020 was a thrill ride. Especially March turned out to be crazy. When you compare it to Q4, all my investments took a nosedive. From an all-time high for my personal portfolio to a new low.

Well, this was an interesting month for obvious reasons. The Coronavirus really took a hold of the world this month after it caused a lockdown in China. It's not exaggerated to say the coronavirus has the world in its grip.

Something interesting happened about a week ago. As you might have read –on my twitter feed or on the blog– I signed the deed of the mortgage and apartment. As a result I'm official the owner the apartment and the land the building is build on; Partially when it comes to the land. What I hadn't mentioned was that I got a 16,575 EUR tax deduction!

This February update is finally a lighter one. The start is the end of my trip to my fiancee's home country. After this, things have remained relatively calm beside the occasional date night. We saw "Little Women" for example. Unfortunately, my Savings Rate still isn't above 50%.

It has started! The first patches of dirt have been moved. Coinciding with the start of the construction I also signed the notary documents. A while ago I found a great mortgage deal that now got officialized at the notary.

January update comes after a fun but tiring month. It started where December ended, in Istanbul. It then ended in yet another country: my girlfriend's home.

The last quarter of 2019 continued where Q3 stopped, on a high note. The amazing experiences continued and the market kept performing stellar and kept making new highs.

My second financial look ahead, this time for the year 2020, has the same idea as the last one. I want to share my expectations for this year and use this as the Kickstarter to create my targets or milestones.

Apologies for the late update. I was enjoying the transition from old to new in a different country 😉 (more on that on that later). December was a busy and expensive month.

The last month of the year is upon us. With the winter holidays approaching fast…

Unavoidable in the search for my place in the search for the best mortgage. Trying…

With this series I want to highlight my monthly effort to reach the highest possible…

What a quarter! The third quarter of 2019 finished almost two weeks ago now. I’m…

Autumn has arrived! Not only is this the period where college and university kids start…

It’s been a tumultuous two weeks. As you know I’ve been searching for my first home. I started that search 4 months ago and the original plan was to move in once I found the perfect fit. While I originally intended to take more time, I recently made two major decisions that turned my slow approach into a rapid one.

The second quarter of 2019 is coming to a close. It's been an interesting ride…

On my journey towards my home, I'm doing more searching online and one of those…

Just like most people trying to achieve FIRE, I encounter the occasional jab regarding my…

This was the first thing I asked myself. While most [Belgians] believe buying your own…

I turn 29 in four months which implicates my thirties are right around the corner…

A new quarter is over. It's almost the exact opposite of Q4 2018. All of…

The who, what, why of MiFID, Market in Financial Instruments Directive. Rules aiming to increases transparency in the European Union's financial market.

Thanks to a three week Christmas holiday I finally had the time to do some reading. Of the four books I choose to read in these next three weeks, the first one that I wanted to get my teeth in was the Dutch book "De schitterende eenvoud van indexbeleggen: wat de banken u niet vertellen" which loosely translates to "The marvelous simplicity of index investing: what the banks don't tell you" written by Mr. Jacques Wintermans.

This past quarter just shows how fast things can change. In my first report, I…

This financial look ahead for 2019 idea originally comes from a post on Reddit by user u/firetheboss_eu…

It's been long overdue, my first book review. I originally planned to get this out faster, but life got in the way. That said, without further ado, a review of the book with the enticing title: "How you get rich and stay rich" by Erica Verdegaal.

Most retail investors that trade on their own already noticed starting 2018. As a European, it’s not possible to buy US-based Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) anymore. If you were trying to find out how to get these US-based ETFs in Europe, I hate to burst your bubble, but there is no straight forward for this after a new ETF regulation in Europe (no, options aren’t straightforward). The major culprit? PRIIPs.

A cafeteria plan is an excellent way to streamline fringe benefits, also called employee benefits…

In an earlier post, I showed how I calculate my savings rate and how you can find out your own. I explained the savings rate and used myself as an example for September. In this post, I'm going into more detail on how I got such a high ratio for September and the two months before.

Savings Rate (SR), it's probably one, if not the, most important concept you must understand when you try to reach Financial Independence and Retire Early. It's also the perfect place to start if you are wondering how to get into FIRE. Let us see what this "fire ratio" actually is.

My first quarterly report, how exciting! I want to make this moment, end of September…

Before you can invest and build up your portfolio you have to start with the…