Portfolio Update 2026: We Crossed €1 Million. Most of It Is Bricks.

*Looks at last portfolio report, sees Q4 2021* Oops, a lot has changed since then… The last time I published a proper portfolio update, we were still talking about Covid, I was still an employee, the renovation hadn’t started, and my daughter was a few months old. That was late 2021. It is now June 2026.

In the meantime, a lot has changed obviously: I went freelance, we renovated the house from top to bottom, the Brussels apartment finally got rented out, I sold the majority of my crypto positions, and we (recently) had a second child.  In other words, this is the catch-up post I’ve been meaning to write for a long time. Let’s go!

Portfolio summary

The Headline Number: 1 million!

To be honest, I didn’t realise we’d crossed a million until I sat down to write this. I wasn’t staring at a dashboard waiting for it to tick over. I just finished the balance sheet, and there it was: 7 figures.

Before you get too excited on my behalf, it’s pretty much just virtual and, at the moment, doesn’t feel useful for my FIRE target.

Why? That million is mostly bricks. Real estate makes up €1,070,200 of total assets (before debt). That’s our family home, and the Brussels apartment combined. There’s still €302,891 in mortgages on those properties, so the real estate equity is around €767k. The house we live in generates no income as you need a roof over your head after all. Making our house a part of the total equity feels a bit strange.

I’d rather strip out the real estate entirely and look at what’s actually investable and (relatively, looking at you retirement portfolio) liquid:

That’s the number I think about for FIRE purposes. €235k in investable assets generates somewhere around €9,400 per year at a 4% withdrawal rate; nowhere near enough to cover a Belgian household. So the ‘real’ million-euro milestone is still quite a bit away. It’s more of a property milestone than a financial independence milestone. Worth celebrating for what it is… A virtual milestone.

Where the Numbers Come From

Here’s the full picture, so including the real estate (estimated) values:

Assets

Liabilities

Net worth: €1,010,762

A few things worth flagging. The family home value is an official estimate I got after the major renovations were completed. This number is rather theoretical, but I took the lowest estimate. The pension reserves are listed at gross because there’s a tax liability lurking. In short, take the headline number as a directional indicator, not an accounting statement.

Quarter-over-quarter progress

For anyone who’s been following since the early posts, here’s the full picture. I tracked investments quarterly from 2018 through 2021, then the renovation chaos swallowed everything for a few years.

A note on the “Net worth all-in” column: the figures for 2020 and 2021 differ from what appeared in the original quarterly posts. The old numbers used the full approved mortgage (€280,000) as a liability from day one, even when only a fraction had been drawn. The apartment asset side wasn’t updated to match as construction progressed. The result was a net worth that looked deeply negative throughout 2020 for no real economic reason. The corrected figures use own cash invested as the asset and only the actual mortgage outstanding as the liability, which is the approach I applied from Q3/Q4 2021 onward. The 18Q3–19Q2 “all-in” equals S&E exactly because there was no real estate in the picture yet.

Note on the “Net worth all-in” column: the figures for 2020 and 2021 differ from the original quarterly posts. The old numbers used the full approved mortgage (€280,000) as a liability from day one, even when only a fraction had been drawn, while the apartment asset wasn’t updated to match as construction progressed. The corrected figures use own cash invested as the asset and the actual mortgage outstanding as the liability — the same approach applied from Q3/Q4 2021 onward. For Q3 2018 through Q2 2019, the all-in figure equals the investments figure because there was no real estate in the picture yet.

The investment portfolio grew from €175k to €292k between late 2021 and May 2026, roughly +67% over four and a half years. That sounds underwhelming compared to the earlier years. It is what it is given the other priorities.

What Changed the Numbers

The renovation ate a chunk of it

The house renovation was a deliberate choice, and I don’t regret it. But it cost real money that didn’t go into the portfolio. Some of it was financed through a bank loan. Some of it came from savings we’d built up. The house we’re living in now is the result, it’s now our family home.

We sold our Bitcoin

At the end of 2024, I sold our remaining Bitcoin positions to help fund the renovation. The timing wasn’t anything grand. We needed the cash, and it was sitting there. Do I have some regret given where Bitcoin went in 2025? Yes, honestly, a little. But I can also stand in my kitchen every morning and use the proceeds. I’ll live with it.

The portfolio shifted toward simplicity

In 2021, the portfolio was a mix of ETFs and individual stocks (Nvidia, BABA, CRSR, PLTR, and some speculative stocks that have since gone to zero or nearly so). Over the past few years, I’ve simplified. The DEGIRO account is purely VWCE for our kids. The main IBKR account has moved significantly toward broad index exposure. Individual stock picking has quietly faded out. I stopped pretending I had an edge there.

The apartment finally earns its keep

The Brussels apartment went through a very long and painful journey from purchase to rental. If you want the full story, that post covers it. The short version: it now generates passive rental income every month. That’s what it was always supposed to do.

The Debt Picture

Total liabilities are at €420,246. This is down (obviously) from the peak during the renovation.
The breakdown is as followed:

• The Brussels appartement carries three mortgages totaling €256,478, at rates between 1.47% and 1.78%. These are covered by the rental income.
• Our family home has:
  • A bank loan of €46,413.
  • An interest-free family loan from my father has come down to €115,800 at €600 per month.
• The credit card balance (€1,555) gets paid off in full every month.

No consumer debt beyond that. No car loan (the car is on the company).

The New Wrinkle in our plan: Capital Gains Tax

Belgium introduced a 10% capital gains tax at the end of 2025 on investment gains above a certain threshold. I’ve written about this separately, in the context of whether it changes the case for robo investing. In terms of the portfolio, it makes me more thoughtful about when and whether to rebalance, and more intentional about avoiding unnecessary taxable events. It doesn’t change the overall direction.

Where the FIRE Plan Stands

Honestly, the goal has evolved or well, shifted.

When I started this blog, FIRE meant stopping work as early as possible. That’s still the direction, but the framing has shifted. Going freelance in 2022 already gave me back a meaningful chunk of the freedom I was looking for. I control my hours, my clients, and, to some extent, my income. The hard stop of “never work again” feels less important than it used to. What matters more now is building a setup where work is genuinely optional.

The renovation and two kids pushed the timeline. Lets say the definition of the finish line moved, too, partly because we might not finish it in Belgium (very hypothetical atm). My wife is from South America, and living there is a real thing we talk about from time to time. A FIRE number that feels distant in Belgium looks very different in her home country. I’ve covered that in the post about FIRE with two kids, if you want the full version.

The investments are at €284k. The “net worth” is at just over €1M. The passive income from the apartment is doing it’s thing and the freelance income gives flexibility. The direction is set, even if the timeline isn’t.

What’s Next

A few things I’m watching:

• The capital gains tax changes the maths on a few positions I’ve been holding. I’ll be thinking about what to do with some of the older individual stock holdings as we get further into 2026.
• The family loan will end in 2042 if we keep it at €600/month. There might be a case for accelerating that, but the rate is 0% so there’s no urgency from a cost perspective.
• The pension reserves (VAPZ and IPT through my company) are stagnant (on purpose). I look at these less as retirement accounts and more as tax-efficient wrappers that happen to lock money away until later. As a result I will only use these further down the line.

More updates to come and hopefully without a four-year gap this time 😉

With a long intro out of the way, let us dig a bit deeper into the numbers like I usually do. Trust me, I don’t plan to make you read all that text before the next update 😉

The main investment account. As of May 2026, the value stands at 214,893.66 EUR (Lynx), which includes a margin position.

The portfolio has simplified a lot since 2021. Back then it was a mix of way too much ETFs and too many individual stocks – Nvidia, BABA, PLTR, and a handful of even more speculative positions that mostly went nowhere. Most of those are gone (CRSR for example). The portfolio has moved significantly toward broad index exposure, with CSPX (S&P 500) and EQAC (Nasdaq-100) doing most of the work. There are still some individual stock positions in the account, but index ETFs now carry the bulk of the weight.

The second (direct) IBKR account holds a smaller set of higher-conviction, higher-risk positions (in USD). Current value: 46,405 EUR at current EUR/USD rate.

This account was set up separately to keep speculative positions clearly isolated from the main index portfolio. If something goes wrong here, it does not drag the core portfolio with it. The main account has gotten cleaner while this one holds the positions I still believe in but would not put 80% of my net worth into.

The DEGIRO account holds 55 shares of VWCE, currently valued at 8,681 EUR. This account is earmarked for the kids. Not a formal custodial account, but money I set aside mentally for their future. Pure VWCE (or SPYI when I top up again). I keep this separate so it does not get mixed into personal portfolio decisions.

The pension reserves stand at 40,028 EUR gross before tax. This covers two vehicles: the group insurance (pilar 2 of the Belgian pension system) from my employee years, and the IPT (Individuele Pensioentoezegging) built up through my company.

I treat these less as retirement savings and more as tax-efficient wrappers. VAPZ and IPT contributions reduce taxable income today, and the money compounds inside the structure. The gross figure is what is there; the net after eventual tax will be lower, which is why I flag it clearly. The VAPZ is topped up annually and the IPT gets reviewed each year depending on what makes sense from a tax angle but I doubt I’ll add to this. Maybe when I have a nice nest egg privately already.

There are virtually none. I have about € 150 in bitcoin left.

At the end of 2024, I sold the large majority of my Bitcoin positions to help finance the house renovation. The timing wasn’t perfectly timed or anything. The renovation needed cash, Bitcoin was sitting there, and I used it. Do I have some regret given where Bitcoin went in 2025? Honestly, yes, a little. But I can stand in my kitchen every morning and look at what the money became.

No Crypto.com card, no CRO, no active speculative crypto positions. The chapter is closed for now.

Cash and savings are lean by design. Most liquidity sits in investment accounts.

My wife’s savings are kept separately as her personal buffer. The kids accounts were started when our daughter was born, and we add the government benefits for our son here as well. Only later on when he really gets his own “gifts” from friends and family will we split them. Either way from us they will always get the same.

Real estate is the bulk of the net worth and also the part that generates zero liquidity until you sell or borrow against it.

Family home
Estimated value after renovation: 660,200 EUR. This is the lowest estimate received. The renovation is complete. Mortgage outstanding with one bank: 46,413 EUR.

Brussels apartment
Estimated value: 410,000 EUR. The apartment is rented out and generating monthly income. After a long construction journey it is finally doing what it was always supposed to do. Full story here. Three Bank mortgages totaling 256,478 EUR outstanding at rates between 1.47% and 1.78%. The rental income covers the mortgage payments.