Grog, your stats look pretty healthy to me!
I assume you've done the maths about the GA - it's cheaper than buying a train ticket each time?
Why cut down the 'work expenses'? 150 for 30 meals is amazing!
What I find tricky about saving in Switzerland is that in nominal terms I can save quite a lot but in percentage of income terms it's quite low.
I mean, maybe I could save 500,000 CHF in ten years or whatever, but it wouldn't be close to financial freedom! In Zurich anyway.
However, I could certainly live off that and retire in anther country.
I assume you guys plan to stay in Switzerland?
I still don't know where I'll end up, but probably yes. Maybe not all year, but yes. Let's say I plan 9 months/y.
About train tickets: yep it's by far the cheapest option. Other than that, I can deduct it from taxes (since I don't have a car) for commuting purpose. Average cost of the pass is 10chf per day and I started tracking "what would my tickets cost" and it was around 18 chf.
About financial freedom, it's not true what you say. The maths are similar with what MMM says: if you have save 75% of your pay, you reduce your cost of living and then it wouldn't matter.
The only difference is that in Switzerland, if you want passive income in chf and split your AA in swiss equity and swiss bonds, then your SWR is probably closer to 3% instead of 4%. On the other hand, we receive an hefty social security (AVS) of up to 28'800 chf per year starting from 65. I could live with that, so my capital must only sustain me for like 20-30 years (assuming retirement around 40).
With some efforts and sacrifice I could live in Zurich with 20'000 chf per year (alone without family), and that would be a total net worth of about 600'000.- (assuming 30x expenses)
Instead of going out, invite the friend over for a grill evening and home-brew beer. Avoid the club. Move with the bike. The usual stuff works in Colorado as in Zurich ;). The library is amazing in Zurich and we really don't need all the Bluewin TV/Horizon digital tv shit.
Smartphone: I had infinity XS with swisscom (59.- /month, crappy internet) and switched over to a dual sim with a swisscom prepay (for calls, I average 5 chf per month) and a second orange sim, for tablet, with 1GB full speed internet for 19 chf (use for sms whatsapp and so on). My total expense went down to 25 per month and I'm planning to switch from orange to sunrise 250 MB for 7.50/month, bringing the total down to 12.50.
There are a lot of workaround that can be exploited, just don't buy into mainstream shit.
Of course, I contniously revealuate my budget and if in the future there will be children, everything will be looking differently. But for the moment is doable.
