Hello! I'm writing here to share my journey so far. I originally posted my stats on bogleheads.org however I'd like to share my journey with the MMM community as well! Thanks for reading :)
Timeline: 2nd April 2021
Country of Residence: Czech Republic
International Lifestyle: None as of yet. My job is fully remote at this time though, I also teach English part-time while studying at the uni.
Currency: EUR (1€ = 25 CZK for simplicity)
Income: 600€ (I expect this to be higher once I will be able to work full-time)
Expenses: 400€, broken up into:
food - 110€
student dormitory rent - 130€
mutual funds - 60€ (I'm about to terminate this, because the fees aren't worth it and I can do better with index funds)
other (car - diesel + insurance, health insurance, quality of life) - 100€
Total funds: 11k€ (I suppose 1,5k€ in emergency fund?)
Debt: 0
Age: 23
Investment plan:
Saving for FI/RE. Ready to drop the 9k€ instantly and then add 100€ every month. There are no big planned game-changers in sight for me at the moment and if there are, I plan to update this thread ASAP.
An eventual game-changer might be living/inheriting the flat after my grandma. Though I'll want my own place to live at some point, I can't conceivably calculate with this in mind.
Proposed Asset allocation:
I got the following advice from my post on r/eupersonalfinance and r/EuropeFIRE, though I only got replies from three guys (was hoping for a bigger discussion) and I'd rather double check this.
Broker - Degiro (custody account), choose a free (accumulating) ETF from the list, specifically IWDA - 87% and IEMA/EMIM - 13%. Good things about VWCE too, but it costs a bit more on broker fees.
Timeline: 13th July 2022
Country of Residence: Czech Republic
International Lifestyle: None as of yet. I teach English part-time while studying at the uni. My job is fully remote at this time. I got a few courses in the area, although 80% of courses are still online. I actually like to visit my local students on foot/bike, as it keeps me from watching the screen all day and helps me keep fit too. I found myself a Georgian girlfriend in the last half a year, so there's a possibility of traveling back and forth between the two countries, luckily Georgia is cheaper than Czechia.
Currency: EUR (1€ = 25 CZK for simplicity)
Income: 600€ (I expect this to be higher once I will be able to work full-time) 14k€ over the last 365 days, according to my Wallet app. I work about 90-100 hours a month, meaning I could still make more in the future.
Note: My income is not 100% regular, some months I have more classes, some less. Double that for July and August, as they are summer holidays months.
Expenses: 400€, broken up into:
food - 110€
student dormitory rent - 130€
mutual funds - 60€ (I'm about to terminate this, because the fees aren't worth it and I can do better with index funds)
other (car - diesel + insurance, health insurance, quality of life) - 100€
5k€ over the last 365 days, including taxes, broken up into:
food/restaurants - 600€
new phone - 200€
dormitory rent - 1600€
car maintenance + fuel - 600+200 = 800€
quality of life (trips, hobbies, gifts...) - 700€
taxes + insurances - 1100€
Note 1: My grandma often gives me food when I visit her every (second) week. I also have oats+milk+nuts for breakfast every day, so all of that cuts down the cost of food. Don't worry, I don't live on ramen and flour.
Note 2: I'll keep the car expenses under check the next year. 800€ is a lot considering I drive it about twice a month for a total of maybe 5k km a year. It's a 2006 diesel Citroen C3 and it takes less than 4,8l/100km.
Cash-flow: +9k€ over the last 365 days.
Note: I get paid in hard cash by two students currently, so some of the expenses are "invisible", however this won't be more than 1k€ in aggregate over the last 365 days.
Total funds: 11k€ (I suppose 1,5k€ in emergency fund?) 24 k€, broken up into:
Degiro - 16,5k€: 6k in VWCE + 9k in IWDA + 1,5k in IEMA
Interactive Brokers - 5k€: 3k in VUAA + 1k in VWCE + 1k unallocated (waiting to go together with the paycheck next week)
reserve: 2k€ @ 4,6% APY savings account
checking accounts + cash: 500€
Aggregate average investment returns since I started in April 2021: ~0€ (I just thought it'd be funny to mention that :P )
Debt: 0
Age: 24
Investment plan:
Saving for FI/RE by 35. By FI/RE I mean having 240k€ saved up, so I can take out 800€ every month/9,6k€ every year (nearly double of my current expenses) @ 4% SWR. I don't plan to not work at all once I am 35 though, but rather to ease into the lifestyle of part-time jobs and hobby jobs of that time.
Investing every month and trying not to be greedy, though small deviations occur here and there to put me back in my place. Planning to make my teaching business even more profitable by charging more money/finding contracts directly without intermediaries and possibly running a small team.
Transportation explanation:
I'm gonna be more nuanced about the transportation situation. The travel distance to visit all my family in total is about 40 kilometers. I used to visit my family every Sunday, for the last few months it's every other Sunday. I can use my car, bike or public transport to get there.
Car: I used the car for about 4500 km in the last 15 months, meaning that's roughly 70 km a week (/64), for the cost of 0,18€/km (800/4500). Let's therefore say the whole trip costs me 7,2€ and takes about 50 minutes.
Public transport: I can get a 5-month (student) ticket for 26€. That's cheaper, however my commuting time jumps up to roughly 2,5 hours. I need to transfer three times to get to my parents' and three times plus one back on the way to my grandma. Visiting every other week (10 times in 5 months) is 2,6€ for one trip, however this makes me sit on my butt for additional 1,5 hours (which means 20€ at my job, if I consider this time unproductive).
Bike: I much prefer using the bike over public transport or car, because I get some exercise and it's free. The whole trip to my family on my bike takes 3 hours, however it's not something I can do all-year long due to snow, if it rains too much etc.
Obviously, the above is fairly simplified, as I sometimes use my car in other ways (i.e. sometimes going to the shop to haul bigger shopping, picking up my brother, going for a trip with more people...). The same could go to the potential of PT long-term ticket (although it's arguably not as flexible).
It's difficult for me to say whether these car expenses will hold up. It just so happened it needed a lot of new parts all at once last year. The car itself has value of about 1-2k€. On the bright side, my father and I just found a car insurance that is half the original price. The car will have to go through a biyearly check next summer, so I'll run the numbers at that point again and figure out how much sense it makes to keep it around.
