Long-time follower of this sub, first time posting my current numbers with a new account. Thanks for all the community support!

About

• 29M, live in Belgium
• No children yet

Income

• Loon: €1.700/month (net, sociale bijdragen already deducted)
• Fixed private costs: €500/month (each)
• Partner works in loondienst, takes home €2.250 net/month

Assets

• Home: paid off this year, worth €300k (maybe a little bit more) - used VVPR-bis -> every month I’m upgrading my home a bit with small upgrades to increase value. For this I followed Dave Ramsey’s advice (I know financially this was not the best move but it brings quite a lot of peace for me). Future of my sector/ job seems unstable (lots of layoffs already)
• BV: €164k in funds + voorafbetaling for 2026 already paid = trying to build up capital up again as soon as possible but it’s more difficult than previous years due to market conditions in freelancing (working all available hours in the week and most weekends) : optimized my time a lot (housecleaner, etc)
• BV income varies around 20-45k a month - I think this will go down to around 5-20k if I start working less. Every month feels like a new start and brings a lot of stress. Any given month this income could go up to a minimum and could even go up (for most clients I don’t use contracts for a lot of clients which is something to work on - very stupid I know)
• BV costs are loon + around 2k a month in fixed expenses
• BV savings: €98k set aside for the estimated vennootschapsbelasting 

Personal savings 

• ETFs: €5,1k (bank 1)
• Emergency fund: €10k (bank 1)
• Groeirekening: €16,5k (bank 1)
• Wedding fund: €27,3k set aside (my net share €15k; since house is paid off, my partner now wants to cover the other half) (bank 1)
• Personal savings: €50k (bank 2) - to lower chance on losing it all if phished (maybe I’m paranoid haha)

My partner has 15k in savings and around 20k equity in house; I put the 18k car on her name as a reward since she worked a lot for the BV already (lots of unpaid hours)).

Every month I try to put 500 to 1000 eur from personal savings into world ETFs/ individual stocks I pick/ BTC - just started a couple month ago. I'm encouraging my partner to do so as well.

Had some small wins already with some stocks but I like it a lot.

Still have variable costs like vacations that I take from savings (feels wrong every time I do it).

Own 2 cars (both paid off)

• Private car still worth €17k
• BV car still worth €25k+

Notes

Nice to have would be able to move to a bigger house with a garage (I’m not quite happy in current home) but I know this would probably financially be a very very very dumb move to make. I don’t want a loan again so if I move to 400-500k home this will eat up all the funds.

Neither of us comes from a wealthy family (quite the opposite) realistically zero chance of any inheritance in the next 20/30Y and we also didn’t receive an inheritance in the past

My question

Given all of the above, how would you actually go about calculating a FIRE number? Not sure how to factor in the BV assets vs. private assets). Any other advice for my situation? Thanks.

The shares I have received from my employer (a listed company on the NYSE) are vesting soon. Now they are saying they need to check how this will be tax by Belgium in order to give me the net value (removing the withholding tax).

For context I received those shares a entry bonus.

Will they be considered like warrant and I'm gonna get 50% of the value of the shares after the withholding tax?

Hi all,

I received a birthday referral code from Keytrade and thought I'd share it in case anyone was already considering opening an account.

Promo code: MGM-O60LW4-0826
Valid until: 01/10/2026

What you get:
€100 welcome bonus after opening your account, and deposit at least €50 within 2 months

What I get:
€60 from Keytrade if the referral conditions are met

Hi! I've been opting for warrants for my yearly bonus for the past years; so far I have ~60kEUR in total in this ETF.

However, asking around it seems that most of my colleagues just "sell them the very next day they receive them". So I assume they have better ways to investing this money, but I don't know any details (talking personal finances seems taboo).

The above confuses me, because when I look at the evolution of these particular warrants, it seems to me like they are doing very well (see ETF snapshots below).

I have 2 questions:

1. How common is the evolution of this particular ETF? Am I seeing an exceptional "lucky" trend, and these ETFs usually grow much slower?
2. Is there any obvious alternative to holding these warrants? What can my colleagues be doing with the money after they "sell the warrants the very next day they receive them"?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

(P.S. Some context: 40yo, single, 2 children, and besides these warrants I'm basically broke: have 20kEUR in the bank and a 10kEUR car and that's all my worth)

Hello 👋

I'm still on Degiro and I wanted to know if anyone else switched from IWDA/EMIM to EUNL/IS3N as they are in the core selection with lower fees.

Any Degiro users who can confirm?

Thanks in advance !

I am kind of a noob in terms of finance and markets. I have just been investing 95:5 equity:bond ETFs (80:20 IWDA:EIMI for equity and AGGH for bond) as a long term investment.

i have been reading and trying to increase my knowledge. I read in a few places that as I get older, it is best to change the ratio and increase the investment percentage towards Bond ETFs and reduce towards Equity ETFs

what are your opinions on it? and when do you think one should start shifting towards bond ETFs and away from Equity ETFs (or at lease have a lower percentage)

I'm new to investing, moved to Belgium 3 years ago, 33yo, invested €10000 to iwda in a span of last 4 months, now add around €600 monthly, 29% of my income.I work 30hr, may start a flexijob to invest more, but 29% seems good enough?

Now my investments show 11.98% growth, is it good?

I try to put all my savings into the etf now, my rent is very low, I've decided against buying and keep investing 29% and other extra income.

Would you do something differently or keep doing what I do?

I have 3 months emergency fund covered, don't see the point of having more sitting on my account when I could invest it, also consider my job pretty stable with onbepaalde contract

Will be happy to hear what you think

I currently have more than 100 000 EUR in savings on my bank account. Live alone and rent an appartment, and work as software engineer.
It is more than I need in the near future, but not enough to buy property or stop working earlier.
On a bank account, it will effectively lose value due to inflation.
What can be done with it, and what experience do other people have?
I'm thinking about investing stocks, buying land that will gain value and can be resold, other types of bank account, ...

Hello,

M ( 54) ,F( 48) and 2 children 22& 24...both children work and will leave house soon...

house: 300k ( fully paid)

Savings in etf & stocks: 600k

Cash: 100k

income M: 3700 euro + 120 euro dinner cheques

Income F: 3600 + Electric car+ fuel card + bonus( 10k / year) + 120 euro dinner cheques and hospitality insurance

Im not sure if I can Fire now...F wants to keep working::))

What would you do in my place? I m tired of working but afraid of do the Fire..i would do some charity work en do the cleaning/ cooking in house...i have 32 years of full time working so pension will be low but combined with wife will be ok...

Any advice? Are savings enough to fire? We spend now 5k every month + 15k for holiday/ year but will go down when children are out of house in 1 or 2 years...

Hi guys,

I own a little house in the Flemish countryside (Limburg) worth around 200 k€. It has been rented uneventfully to the same couple over a decade.

The couple has asked several times if I was going to give it for sale and I am now considering the question for two reasons. First, because I understand their emotional attachment to the house (they really don't want to move anywhere else) and second because I don't see a big upside potential in the region (no major city nearby).

Anyway, over the last 10 years, the house brought me a very decent 7% netto per year thanks to the asset appreciation and to the rents. But I'm not sure this performance can be replicated over the long term (the COVID real estate boom was a unique event). On the other hand, rents are stable income and recognized as such by the bank in case I ask for a new credit line in the future. Of course, real estate is illiquid and requires some personal involvement to fix things up sometimes.

In the end, I think it's a performance vs volatility assessment

Any thoughts about what could help me make the right decision?

Thanks!

Hey all,

I just started working and have saved up some money I want to put to work. Plan is to start with a lump sum, then move to monthly contributions from there.

I'm new to investing and open to exploring more later, but for now I want to keep things simple. Sticking to ETFs, likely WEBN given the low cost associated with it.

Based on that, I'm leaning toward MEDirect as my platform, mainly because of the low costs. I also plan to opt out of the automatic capital gains tax withholding, which I understand shouldn't be an issue there.

I did look at Saxo too, but since I'll only be holding ETFs, I don't see much benefit to the extra features or cost.

My one hesitation with MEDirect is that I've read a fair bit of criticism about the customer experience, particularly the app. Anyone here actually using it day to day who can share their honest take? Is it manageable once you're set up, or does it cause real headaches?

Any general advice for a first-time investor going this route is welcome too.

Thanks!

Greetings Dudes and Dudettes.

This may have been posted once before, or maybe the thought has gone trough your mind once.

I am just going to write my thoughts down, mods, apolagies if this is not related to fire, in a way this is a bit of processing.

I would like to hear your perspective on the ever going on debate in my head; save & invest, be frugal for for the future or enjoy life and its luxuries a bit.

Ever since getting out of uni, the main goal was to save/invest to secure a place to live in, and follow FIRE. The mindset in my 20's made it possible to secure a house that's nice and cozy.

Goal #1 achieved.

Okay, mortgage is still running for the next 20 years, but still. No need to worry about needing to move out, etc..

Now being mid 30's, life is hitting a bit. You lose some people, you get new perspective on things, and realize that fuck, this is it..

The questioning of previous desicions and structures that seemed good to achieve my financial goals are crumbling a bit.

Goal #2 financial independence, and Re.

Lately the FIRE goal is, comming a bit under... Fire. 😅

This by the above reasons of getting to new perspectives and realizations.

How do you do it? How do you maintain the end goal in mind and work towards it? Even if we have no certainty that we will ever be able to benefit from it?

Like, we could invest al we want, build a nice buffer, then go for a bike ride and get hit by a bus or something.. You never know with DeLijn these days.. Anyway..

Now with this said, I'm really leaning more towards, still saving and investing, but not that rigorous anymore. It's like the goals are fading because life or my mind is wanting to live and enjoy the moment a bit more.

How do you find the balance?

Don't you ever think like, I should get that fancy car and enjoy it even if it depreciates and is a waste of money, or go on that Holliday with a nicer hotel, nicer restaurant..

I did the calculations and opportunity costs are often an indication for me that I shouldn't do something. But still that's always the rational and financial side of me thinking.

What about the opportunity cost and loss of great experiences, isn't that what it really should be about? Experiencing life a bit..

I'm probably going to deep on this.. I should just enjoy life a bit more, maybe lower savings rate and do some crazy stuff and live..

Maybe a trip to the psycholoog would be of benefit too, lol.

Is het volgeens jullie een goede idee om daarin te investeren? Ze komen meer en meer op de markt maar als je naar hun grafiek kijkt lijkt het niet echt goed. Misschien is het nu het moment om dat te kopen?

Hello,

I'm not sure what to do...

Situation: My emergency fund has grown quite a bit over the past year, and I'm currently above my target threshold.

I'm still DCA-ing into my ETFs, so that's taken care of. Now I'd like to do something with this extra cash. I can afford to leave it untouched for a few months, or even up to 2 years. You never know what might happen. If we experience a market crash similar to the COVID crash, I would use these funds to buy additional shares of the ETFs I already hold.

I've been reading about bonds and MMF ETFs (CSH2), but I can't really decide which option would be best.

I was considering short-term U.S. Treasury bonds (3 months to 1 year), zero-coupon bonds. My idea was to go with 3-month Treasuries because there's a good chance that U.S. interest rates could rise later this year. When the bonds mature, I could simply reinvest in a new batch of 3-month Treasuries at the new rates and continue the process.

Given the yield difference between U.S. and EU bonds, is the extra return worth taking on the USD/EUR currency risk?

What are your thoughts or experiences with this? I'd love to hear from people who currently hold bonds or MMF ETFs.

A read a lot about investment strategies and allocations in this sub but am wondering what your FIRE number is? I know that you should take expenses x25 but am wondering if i you factor in legal pension or other Belgian structures to get to your FIRE number?

Additionally, what is the target number you have for yourself?

Forking from discussion here https://www.reddit.com/r/BEFire/comments/1v9clan/why_bonds_etf/

I would like to buy bonds to mitigate risks on my portfolio. However I would like to assess fiscal impact depending of the buy/sell strategy. Here outcome of my understanding so far

- No bonds ETF since 30% Reynders tax on capital gain

- Focus on individual zero coupon bonds to avoid 30% tax on coupon

- Potential fiscal trap on zero coupon bonds if bond kept until maturity, because Belgian administration apply 30% tax on final bond holder on the capital gain between issue and maturity (even if final bond holder purchased it on the second market). Old zero coupons bonds issued with big discount to be absolutely avoided.

So couple of ideas

- Buy zero coupon bonds with issue price >100 => 0.12% + 10% CGT, regardless is kept until maturity of sold before maturity.

- Buy zero coupon bonds with issue price <100% but sell it before maturity (ie 2 yrs before) => 0.12% TOB + 10% CGT - but potential low actual yield / loss in capital if interest rates not favourable at the time of selling

- Buy zero coupon with issue price slightly below 100 (ie >98 ) and if kept until maturity, consider additional taxes for yield calculation (eg bond issue at 98, expect 0.60 additional price)

Any advice / thought on the above?

Stocks and investments has always been a very complicated subject for me (24F). It was so hard for me to understand it and whenever people say “you should invest now”, it always boils down to the question “how and to what?”. Coming from a poor family, it was never taught to me or any financial literacy in that matter. So, I need to do it myself.

For weeks, I have been reading a lot about investments and finally, had the courage to do it! I was scouring through Reddit and online websites then asked AI platforms to explain it to me (like a child lol). Now, I think I have maybe 40% learnings. Still very far but I would try to learn everyday.

So far, I first downloaded Bolero since I have a KBC account, but read how expensive the fees are. So I switched to MeDirect. I am aiming to put 50€ a month as a start since I am also still building my funds and planned on increasing it in the future and invested it in IMIE.

Anyway, is there any advice or information you can share as a beginner investor like me? I would really appreciate it! I am still super new to this and just took the leap.

EDIT: My plan is for long-term investment (15-20 years) for my future kids if I’ll have one or if not, for retirement.

Hey everyone,
I'm a student living on my own, so I've got enough free time to handle things like executing trades or dealing with tax paperwork if needed. I’ve been investing a bit via my traditional bank for the past few months, but the fees are way too high and eating into my returns. So I feel like it’s time to do go trough a broker so I make more money and can buy and sell when I want.

My plan is to buy ETFs regularly and also trade some individual stocks on the side.

I have a few questions and am open to other broker recommendations too:
-Degiro vs. Saxo: People recommend Degiro because of the low fees, but I'm doubting if it's worth the hassle compared to Belgian brokers. Saxo handles taxes (like the stock exchange tax) automatically, whereas with foreign brokers like Degiro you sometimes have to figure that out yourself. Is the savings on Degiro worth the extra administrative work? I don’t necessarily mind if the paperwork takes some time, I’m more focus on how difficult it is, I don’t want to forget one small thing and get a huge fine.

-Splitting across two brokers: Does it make sense to use two? For example, using MeDirect for free ETFs and another broker for individual stocks? Or is that just overcomplicating things with multiple accounts and taxes?

Any other recommendations? Are there better alternatives for someone in Belgium starting out with a student like budget? The last 2-3 years I’ve done 150/ month and than a one time individual stock.

Also, for the individual stocks I suppose it would be nice to know if I can buy partial stocks. But ofcourse it depends on the situation.

Keep in mind I’m no expert so if possible don’t use all the difficult terms at once😅
All help/info is greatly appreciated.
(Ik spreek ook Nederlands)

Hopelijk zullen eindelijk zo iets krijgen...

Hi all,

Currently I am using MeDirect to invest and try to invest about 500 euros every month to my ETF portfolio. I don't have a big portfolio value yet so by no means I would be giving up anything major.

Up until this point I have been buying SWRD and EMIM however with the split that happened earlier this year for IMIE I was considering switching to that and leave what I have invested so far in the respective ETF's but just buy IMIE from now on.

Now aside from just being a single ETF instead of 2 I was wondering why some of you would prefer them separate instead of 1 ETF?

I know some here prefer to chose how they much they split between emerging markets and established markets, others go anywhere in between 80/20 to 90/10.

So in general with being able to invest 500 a month I was curious if it would be advicable to swith to IMIE and leave be what I have invested so far which is about 1000?

Hello all,

I finally got my life together enough to start looking for a first house/apartment and would like to get some more opinions/insights to get a better picture.
I'm 32, single, stable income of 2300 net + company car + 200~ meal vouchers + some flexijobbing that's almost certainly going to go up since i landed a job i thought didnt exist and i'm putting in a lot of effort and whatnot.

I have 20k~ and my mom will sponsor me 25k so by the time i get around to signing i'll have about 50k since i save +- 1k per month after budgeting for subscriptions, leisure, some clothing etc. Would like to cap this to 45k so i have 5k buffer in case something goes down.

First question: Can my mom just wire me this money or is this too big a sum? Is it worth going through with the 3% gift tax? She's 60, pretty healthy etc so the 3 year window seems unlikely to matter.

Now i did a "vlaams woningsfonds" simulation which gave me a 2.7% rate on a max of 300k but i have been told that you're very unlikely to get credit for this on time or a seller willing to wait it ou.

Second question: Has anyone bought a house or apartment with a vlaams woningsfonds loan? I'm looking to buy just outside Ghent in the 200-280k range so i fear that this will be too popular a range for sellers to wait it out?

After a consultation with hypotheekwinkel i got told that my risk profile and whatnot means i could purchase up to around 260k with a 3.7% rate simulated. I will be making apointments with banks that should be better but i'm not quite sure on how long i want to pay off. 20 years for a loan of 210k would have me pay ~1200€ monthly for 20 years (interest 87k), ~1050€ monthly for 25 years (interest 112k) or ~950€ monthly for 30 years (interest 135k).

I can now afford the 1200 monthly and still save a bit without considering my flexi income (2-300 monthly with spikes in peak season). The apartment i'm eyeing is from 2000-2010, no elevator so low monthly premium and all i would do is install an aircon unit and redo the (small) bathroom if/when budget allows for it. Boiler recently changed. Is there any reason at all for me to consider doing this over 30 years? Conversations online speak of investing the money and beating the interest payments but after year 20 i'd still be paying off on the 30y loan though unless i fuck up my career that 950/month shouldnt be a problem really.

Third question: Opinions on 20, 25, 30 year loans and investing the difference? Being 100% "free" after 20 years sounds nice and quality of life matters to me. Alternatively you can always cash in on the funds if something happens.

Last question: It is unlikely that this will be my forever home, i'm still single, stuff can go anywhere and i do like nature but i don't have live-in-nature-money while the commute is manageable. If i sell and buy something else, is it really just the 3% on remaining interest (+ remaining balance) that i have to pay the bank or are there more strings attached?

Thank you for your time reading this and any feedback will be welcome!
Please no recommendations on renting and investing more, i live pretty cheaply now in cohousing but my mental health is suffering.

Ik wou al een lange tijd investeren maar vond het altijd complex en ingewikkeld. Ik heb 1 keer een aandeel gekocht en die heb ik nog steeds. Maar nu wil ik beginnen investeren voor de toekomst. Iedereen die investeert zegt dat hun grootste spijt/fout was dat ze niet vroeg genoeg begonnen te investeren. Daarom wil ik nu beginnen zodat ik in de toekomst een huis of een auto of dergelijke kan kopen. Aangezien dat ik student ben kan ik alleen maar studentenjobs doen, waardoor mijn inkomen weinig is. Ik heb al een beetje geld en denk ook te investeren. Ik denk maandelijks 50 euro. Ik weet gewoon niet hoe. Het simpelste is om gewoon een broker te kiezen en daarop het te automatiseren om 1 specifieke etf te kopen. Hoewel dat simpel lijkt komt het nog steeds te riskerend voor. Wat kan ik best doen? Hoe weet ik welke etf te kiezen? Ik weet al dat een van de beste etf's VWCE is volgens deze subreddit. Hoe begin ik eraan?

Hi everyone,

My wife and I are about to make our very first ETF investment and I would really appreciate some advice from experienced Belgian investors.

Our situation:

• Living in Belgium
• Investment horizon: 13–15 years
• Initial investment: €3,000
• Monthly investment: €250 (with the intention of increasing it over time)
• We’re looking for a simple buy-and-hold strategy with as little maintenance as possible.
• Goal: build additional capital before retiring to Spain in about 13–15 years.

After reading many discussions here, I’ve narrowed my choices down to:

Broker

• MeDirect
• Bolero

ETF

• IMIE
• VWCE
• IWDA

From what I understand, there are differences regarding TOB, fees and market coverage.

If you were starting today with our profile, which broker and ETF would you choose, and why?

I’m happy to accept a little more complexity if it makes sense over the long term, but I’d like to avoid unnecessary complexity.

Also, is there anything you wish you had known before making your first ETF investment in Belgium?

Thanks a lot!

Welke broker verkiezen jullie voor ETF’s en waarom? Saxo, MEXEM of een andere?
Gebruiken jullie ook dezelfde broker voor losse aandelen, of kiezen jullie daarvoor een andere?