Investing Archives

Palladium wedding rings on a wooden surface

Should you invest in Gold alternatives? Checking out 3 alternative metals

Our wedding bands — This is the render of the wedding bands we ordered to symbolize our commitment to each other.

Recently, my wife and I were looking for our wedding rings.

While checking out different stores, I started thinking. Could white gold, platinum, and palladium be good gold alternative investments just as they are alternatives in wedding rings?

Investors see gold as a safe investment in times of economic turmoil. But what about its lesser-known but more expensive and rare (metal) sibling palladium (not to be mistaken with platinum)? And what about white gold? Should you invest in any of these?

YNAB Vs nYNAB Vs Excel: A Helpful Budgeting Tool reviewed

Disclaimer: This post contains a referral code to YNAB.

Important Note: As of November 2021, I decided to stop using YNAB. Their recent price increase makes it a less interesting option for Europeans who don’t benefit from Sync functionality.

The aptly named budgeting tool YNAB, short for You Need A Budget, stopped supporting their legacy tool YNAB4 on 31 October 2019. I’ve been an avid user of the tool for over 7 years, so seeing their support completely disappear made me question if a change was needed.

So using the end of support, I decided to do a review of my YNAB-usage and see what I should do:

Do the effort of moving to the new YNAB (aka nYNAB), and pay a subscription fee -the horror!-
Or move to a good old Excel spreadsheet

My monthly Savings Rate report: April 2020

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.

5 thematic funds for the future

Heads up before you read these suggested themes. This post and other posts like it are my own thoughts and ideas. I’m not a broker/dealer, nor am I an investment advisor. I have no access to non-public information about publicly traded companies, and this is not a place for the giving or receiving of financial advice, advice concerning investment decisions or tax or legal advice. These are suggestions, guides, not advice.

More and more thematic funds are being released on us: from agriculture to solar energy. It’s won’t help you keep a simple portfolio, but if you are interested in dabling in other areas than a region-based portfolio and don’t mind doing some futurology -yes that’s a thing- I’d like to go over a few interesting options.

Quarterly Portfolio Report - growing stack of coins

Quarterly Portfolio Report – Q1 2020

USD rate used: 1 USD = 0.9209908 EUR

-EUR

Total portfolio worth (all in)

+EUR

Total portfolio worth (Savings & Effects)

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.