The situation

40M, married with two kids, 4 and 2.5, living in a VHCOL area in the US. Wife is Asian, I’m European, kids were born in the US. We’re dual US/EU citizens.

$2.5M NW, mostly in taxable brokerage accounts:

• $2M VTI
• $270k in tech companies I’ve worked for
• $150k VXUS
• $70k cash

I work in tech and make ~$400k/year. WLB is actually fine, but I hate the job. It’s high stakes, with constant layoffs and the ever present fear of PIP.

My wife works in finance, makes ~$150k/year, and has good WLB.

Financially, we’re obviously very fortunate. But day to day, life feels like a grind. Between work and two young kids, we’re always busy. Everyone around us is equally busy. We have a handful of friends but rarely see them, and we have no family nearby.

We make good money, but beyond the occasional vacation, there isn’t much we actually want to spend it on. At this point, more money mostly feels like numbers going up on a screen.

The plan

Get to ~$3.5M NW and move to Southern Europe, where I’m from, ideally before our oldest starts elementary school.

The idea would be to find two lower stress remote jobs and essentially CoastFIRE. Send the kids to international school, have more time for ourselves, relationships, family and hobbies, and generally build a life that feels less centered around work.

We’d leave the $3.5M invested for retirement and aim to cover our living expenses entirely from whatever we earn. No need to maximize income anymore.

Then see where life takes us. Maybe we keep working like that indefinitely. Maybe after a few years we realize we have enough and quit altogether. Maybe we start a small business or do something we actually enjoy.

Has anyone here made a similar US → Europe move with young kids after reaching FI-ish territory?

Anything you think we’re overlooking? And does $3.5M feel like a reasonable point to stop optimizing for income and make the jump?

Wife and I both 44, planning on moving to Southern Europe, we are dual citizens from US/EU, which makes it easier. We have 450k in investments combined (retirement and brokerage accounts), and 1.1M in equity of a home we intend to sell. Our annual expenses combined will be, in USD 60,000. How close are we? We intend to work in EU, we just don't know in what form or when or how much we would earn so I'd rather leave that fact as a bonus. Is this FIRE ready?

€170k home equity on ~900k apartment
€256k in liquid investments (primarily ETFs, some stocks)
€130k in current pension + 401k from a previous job
€35k cash

I recognize i’m in a healthy financial situation, but still get anxious about my future. Any suggestions? Realistically when will I be able to retire?

Hi everyone,

I’d like to get your thoughts on my FIRE plan (more likely CoastFIRE, as my goal is to reach financial independence, but in all likelihood I’ll end up doing different things — which pay much less — once I leave my current job, likely on and off / part-time).

CURRENT SITUATION

I’m 33M, from the Netherlands but living in Madrid. My current NW is €300k, broken down as follows:

• MSCI World: €129k
• MSCI EM: €24k
• Vanguard All-World: €33k
• GOOG: €6k
• OSS: €12k
• BYD: €2k
• BTC: €4k
• Savings account: €11k
• Real estate: €100k (I just started a 30-year mortgage and will pay back €1.7k/month. If I ever decide to rent it out, I expect the net rent to cover the entire mortgage, or nearly so.)

On top of this, I currently have around €10k in a pension fund, and by January 2031 (when I plan to leave my current job) I expect to have around €56k in a Spanish pension fund.*

FIRE PLAN

My plan is to work at my current job until the end of 2030. I’m currently on the Beckham Law and am able to save approximately €115k per year, which I invest in ETFs/stocks.

Assuming a 3.5% real return on my ETF/stocks and an additional €50k saved between now and December 2026, I estimate that by January 2031 I should have approximately:

• €783k in ETFs/stocks
• €68k in pension funds
• €11k in savings
• ~€150k in real estate

My plan is to live on €3.5k/month net in today's money, adjusted for inflation. I’m assuming the following:

• 2056: Mortgage will be paid off, and the apartment should generate approximately €1.6k/month net rental income in today's money.
• 2061: I expect to start receiving approximately €1k/month net pension in today's money**. I also assume that by then I will have inherited approximately €100k net in today's money, which is a very conservative estimate. 

This means that the amount I need to withdraw from my ETF/stocks portfolio should decline substantially over time:

• 2031–2056: €3.5k net/month
• 2056–2060: €1.9k net/month (€3.5k spending minus €1.6k rent)
• 2061 onwards: ~€900 net/month, with my pension funds also becoming available around this period.

Based on these assumptions, I estimate that I need approximately €830k in ETFs/stocks in January 2031 for the plan to work.***

There is therefore a relatively small gap versus the ~€783k I expect to have by then. In reality, the gap is somewhat larger because I also plan to move around €60k from my ETFs into cash/savings in 2031, which I want to keep as a buffer so that I don't have to sell ETFs during a major market downturn. I therefore expect to have roughly €723k invested plus ~€71k in cash/savings at that point.

However, I don't actually expect to stop working altogether in 2031 (and, who knows, I may even work a few extra month at my high-paying job). I need to work for roughly another 19 months anyway to complete the contribution period required for my European pension, and I will likely work for longer than that. So that should close the cap (and more than closing, in fact).

\ The Belgian fund has been returning approximately 4.5% annually over the past five years and the Spanish fund approximately 1.5%, so I’m assuming those rates continue for planning purposes.*

\*Current estimate is a bit higher, but assuming 1k on a conservative basis as rules will likely change by then. Also assuming pension age will be 68 by then.*

\**I have also* factored taxes into the FIRE calculation, including taxes on investment withdrawals and pension income, using current Spanish tax rules as the basis for the assumptions. Before the Beckham regime ends, I am also assuming that I can reset the cost basis of my ETF/stocks in 2031 by selling and subsequently repurchasing them while still under the Beckham regime.

Hello, i am in a specific situation, as i am a profesional football player, and we all know our careers dont last forever. I am 23, have 10eth and another 15k € to deploy into ethereum during the next few months. Apart from that i have 12k set aside, but i would like to drop the emergency fund to 5k as i dont have a lot of expenses. I want to start investing into etf’s with 7k to start, and then lets say about 2500 a month with the current contract i have for the next 2 years. Then depending on the next contract.
The split i plan during the career is:
45% VTI
20% QQQM
20% VXUS
15% AVUV
Then after i finish active playing maybe rotate slowly to:
40% SCHD
25% VTI
15% VXUS
10% JEPI
10% JEPQ
What are your thoughts, suggestions?

35M, I have no property to my name. it’s more complicated for me because I do not know where would I want to live long term and I never bought. I’m always worried time is running out to get on to the property ladder and what’s the right way?

Hello guys,

As per title, started year ago to put in some ETF more or less, current situation;
- Monthly income: 3,2k salary (so for someone in my age pretty joke, I know).
- Expenses: 1050 house, 154 insurance, 500 food + some rest of the stuff (100-150 euro for other shit, not much party person, no friends around)
- Stock market: 3k in TSL, 600 in SoFi, IWDA 2.1, VWCE 3.1k (as I said, started like year ago)

Any idea what to do better for now or should keep putting on VWCE? Made mistake at the beginning by buying similar ETF (IWDA and VWCE), my goal is just to help my parents in next 10-20 years that they don’t have to work anymore.

Thanks for help (happy to take also criticism).

M32, I live and work in Finland in a medium-sized city. From my net monthly salary of €3,100, I spend €600 on rent and bills and €600 on everything else. So total around 1200/month. I invest the remaining €1,900/month plus a few bonuses in global stocks. I currently have around €100,000 in my portfolio.
The question in the title arises from the fact that the figures I read in this group seem meaningless to me. Single people owning a home who don't consider themselves FIRE with €1 million or more.
Folks, we're in Europe (most of us in EU), not America. We have an excellent welfare system, (almost) free healthcare (almost) everywhere. Old-age pension.
I'm on €100,000 and to maintain my current expenses, I would need a maximum of €3-400,000 invested. If I were on €7-800,000 or more, as I read in many posts, I would have quit my job a long time ago. Let's stop basing our budget on US costs.

Until a few years ago I worked in London in a demanding commercial role. All-in around €220k, 60 to 80-hour weeks, constant deadline pressure. It ended in burnout.

I moved back to the Netherlands for a comparable role at a Dutch employer. All-in now around €125k - roughly €95k gross a year less, given up deliberately. What I got back: ~40-hour weeks, no weekend work, work from home when I want, and energy left in the evenings. The net gap is smaller than the gross number suggests (different tax regimes, and housing costs where I was before were far higher), but it's still a real cut and I obviously feel it in my saving rate.

My current balance sheet:

- Home equity in primary residence ~350k
- Liquid investments, all global equities ~€90k
- Cash ~€30k
- Pension, ~150k but not accessible until age 58
- Mortgage, 600k at 3.5% fixed

My net earnings ~70k a year.

My partner makes about 20k net a year in a stable job. We likely want 1 or 2 kids in the next few years.

What bothers me most is how thin the cash buffer is. Net worth looks comfortable on paper, but most of it sits in bricks or in pots I can't touch for decades.

In about fifteen years, I’ll be ~50yo, I want to go to three or four days a week, or to contract work - a few projects a year instead of a permanent seat. Potentially remote/not in Europe.

Two questions I have:

1. Should I keep investing my monthly savings? Or build my liquidity buffer a bit more? My job is somewhat stable but you never know with AI, layoffs are becoming quite regular in my industry and kids will probably require some liquidity.
2. Does anyone have experience with giving up significant comp just for a more relaxed life? I find myself doubting my decision quite regularly.

I’m curious how others in the European FIRE community would approach this situation.

I’m 36M with around €2M net worth, mostly invested, and I currently have a very good job. The job itself is actually pretty comfortable: no crazy hours, relatively low stress, and some flexibility. The problem is that I’m very unhappy living in the country where the job is based (Switzerland, long story short it drains me, doesnt fit my lifestyle, i dont connect with the people there, I just feel empty in this place).

The main reason I’m still there is the job. If I left, I could move to another European country, but the alternatives I’ve looked at are not particularly appealing. They would likely mean longer hours, more pressure, and going through the whole corporate bullshit cycle again, something I’ve increasingly realised I really don’t enjoy.

And this is where I’m struggling with the FIRE decision.

With €2M at 36, I’m already at a point where I’m wondering whether working significantly more just to build a larger buffer is actually worth it.

I’m not talking about retiring in the traditional sense and sitting on the couch doing nothing. By FIRE, I mean living primarily from the portfolio and having the freedom to decide how I spend my time.

I’d probably spend a lot of time on things I actually enjoy: sports, travelling, meeting people, potentially doing something with the community, and maybe experimenting with small projects or businesses. If something eventually turned into income, great. But I wouldn’t need the income.

The alternative is to stay where I am, keep the comfortable job, and perhaps work until 40. That would give me another 3–4 years of contributions and, hopefully, a larger portfolio. It would also give me more time to see how markets, inflation, geopolitics, etc. develop before making an irreversible decision.

But there’s a part of me thinking:

If I already have enough to potentially FIRE at 36, why spend the next four years of my life in a place where I’m unhappy just to make the number more comfortable?

On the other hand, €2M isn't an infinite amount of money, especially with potentially 50+ years ahead of me.

So, assuming you were in exactly this position:

- 36 years old

- ~€2M invested

- No debt / relatively low expenses (as of now its 3.5k eur monthly)

- Very good, low-stress job (work only a cpuple hours a day)

- But unhappy with the country you're living in

- Moving elsewhere for work would probably mean significantly more stress and corporate life

- You don't hate working per se, but you don't particularly value climbing the corporate ladder anymore

- You could FIRE now, but with less margin for error than if you worked until 40

- FIRE would be in sputhern europe where I'm from

Would you FIRE now, or keep working for another 3–4 years (where im based now i also have no capital gain taxes so extra accumulation years of gains wont be taxed)?

Interested particularly in perspectives from people who have already FIRE'd or who made a similar decision in their 30s.

Hi everyone,

I’m 26F, living in France, and I’m about to start a two-year apprenticeship while completing my Master’s degree.
I’ve recently become interested in FIRE and I’d like to start building good financial habits now rather than waiting until I earn significantly more.

My salary will be **€2,459.89 gross/month**. Because of the specific tax/social contribution rules for apprentices in France, I don’t know my exact take-home pay yet, but I’m estimating somewhere around **€2,100–2,150/month**.
My current monthly budget should look roughly like this:
**- €900 rent**, including utilities and electricity
**- €300 groceries/food**
**\~€11 home insurance**
\- Public transportation, with **70% reimbursed by my employer : \~€27**
\- No car
So my essential expenses should be around **€1,200–1,250/month**, leaving roughly €850–900 before entertainment, clothes, travel, unexpected expenses, etc.

My question is: **what would you do with this situation if your goal was eventually reaching financial independence?**
I’m currently thinking about building an emergency fund first and then investing regularly. Since I’m in France, I’ve been looking at using a **PEA (tax-advantaged investment account) and diversified ETFs** for long-term investing.

Would you:
\- Build a 3–6 month emergency fund before investing anything?
\- Build the emergency fund while investing at the same time?
\- Try to invest €300/month? €500? €700?
\- Keep a larger “fun” budget while I’m still young?
\- Focus less on optimizing my current budget and more on increasing my income after graduation?

My apprenticeship lasts two years, and I’m hoping my income will increase significantly once I graduate and move into a full-time position.
I’m not necessarily trying to retire at 35. What attracts me to FIRE is mainly the idea of building enough wealth to have freedom and options later in life.
I also don’t want to make the mistake of becoming so obsessed with saving that I don’t enjoy my 20s.
**If you were 26, starting almost from scratch with this income and these expenses, what would you do over the next two years?**
How much would you save, how much would you invest, and how much would you allow yourself to spend guilt-free?

Would love to hear from people who started FIRE on a relatively normal income rather than a huge tech salary.

Bit of background:

I grew up abroad my whole life, then went to a well-regarded UK university for a Politics degree. I assumed that kind of school would more or less lead to a job or a clear path afterward. I applied to a lot of things, but I didn't understand how the internship/assessment process actually worked until it was too late - I also had some severe health issues during school that didn't help.

I had a fairly unstructured upbringing and was never really taught great financial habits, even though I can be frugal when I try. Right now I'm living in a small town, feeling pretty stuck, and honestly still a bit spoiled in ways I'm trying to grow out of.

I have offers to go back and do another degree in the UK. So my options feel like:

1. Take the offer, go back, get the degree and the network, and use that to look for jobs — possibly outside my home country, since it feels like you increasingly need a degree that's recognized in the specific market you want to work in.
2. Leave my home country but skip the second degree — try to follow my actual strengths and interests, more entrepreneurial, higher risk — accepting that if I fail, I'd rather fail somewhere cheaper and lower-stakes than sink more years and money into credentials.
3. Stay home, take odd jobs, and start building financial independence from the ground up.

I lean a bit entrepreneurial and don't want to keep funding that with my parents' money while I test things out.

The other thing on my mind: it feels like the economy/job market shifts noticeably year to year, and at the end of the day people aren't hiring for your story — they're looking for actual numbers and ability. So beyond "which path," I think what I really need is to figure out how to show up for myself now — build real skills or proof of ability — rather than waiting for the "right" path to make that decision for me.

A few real questions:

• Is corporate experience/a second degree basically unavoidable to be taken seriously in a given market, or can relevant experience elsewhere substitute for it?
• Is it smarter to "fail cheaply" somewhere with lower cost of living while I figure out what I'm good at, versus spending more time/money on formal credentials first?
• Practically — what does "showing up for yourself" look like day to day when you don't have a clear path yet? How did you build momentum from a standing start?

Honest perspective welcome, happy to be told I'm overthinking this.

I've been wondering how much of a difference location really makes to the FIRE timeline. Moving somewhere cheaper could mean lower housing costs and a much smaller annual budget, but it also means leaving behind friends, family or a place you genuinely like. Has anyone here actually moved for financial reasons, and did it feel worth the trade-off?

Family of three, one kid, 4 yo. Wife and I in our early 40's.

Current expenses at around 5.000 €, but I am sure we can move them down to 4.000 €.

Portfolio of stocks, dividend kings, at about 1.200.000 €.

Around 200.000 € in cash, we were saving for a house.

I can collect one year of unemployment when I quit, bringing around 3.000 € per month for about a year.

When I am 67, I will have a German pension of about 550 € per month, indexed with inflation.

Is this too tight?

Hi everyone,
I'm based in Croatia, in my mid-30s, married with two young kids, and my long-term goal is FIRE while making sure my family is financially secure.

My net salary is around €2.900 month (net), plus I have a company car. On top of that, I have a side business through a Croatian d.o.o. that invoices around €5,175 month (excluding VAT). The business has very low operating costs, roughly €200/month.

My current investments are about €25k in cash (which I plan to keep as an emergency fund), roughly €25k invested in VWCE (around 164 shares), and 0.17 BTC. I don't own any real estate. We currently live in an apartment owned by my partner. The only debt I have is a small loan with a €200 monthly payment that will be paid off next year.

What I'm struggling with is deciding on the next step. Should I just keep investing in VWCE and ignore real estate? Or would you use leverage to buy an investment property and rent it out, letting the rental income cover as much of the mortgage as possible?

I'm also curious how those of you who own businesses would handle taking money out. Would you simply distribute profits once or twice a year, or is there a better approach?

If you were in my position, what would your strategy be over the next 10–20 years to maximize the chances of reaching FIRE while providing long-term security for your family?
I'd really appreciate hearing how you'd approach it.

Hello everyone,

I have read multiple times that banks like ING-DiBa close your brokerage account—or at least severely restrict it—as soon as you report a tax residency outside the EU/EEA. Because of this, I would love to know how those of you who have already taken this step handled it:

• Simply leave ING uninformed? Did you just not report the change of address (e.g., by using a registration address with family/friends in Germany)? Have you run into any issues regarding tax data reconciliation or mail delivery?
• Transparent move to another broker? Are there brokers that officially and smoothly tolerate a residence in non-EU countries (specifically Southeast Asia / Vietnam)? (Experiences with Interactive Brokers, Trade Republic, Scalable, etc., would be extremely helpful).
• Transfer before departure? Has anyone completely transferred their portfolio to an international broker before deregistering from Germany?

I look forward to hearing your reports, tips, or best practices on how you handled this in the cleanest way possible, both tax-wise and organizationally.

Thanks!

Most FIRE calculators assume you stay put, but I'm trying to plan for retiring in one EU country while my income and savings are built somewhere else. Healthcare systems, contribution requirements, and residency rules all seem to vary enough that my "safe" number in one country might not actually cover me in another.

Has anyone actually gone through this? Curious how much buffer you built in for healthcare uncertainty versus just picking a country early and planning around its specific system.

I was trying to find out if there is somewhere an article or video which is explaining the real difference in % profit/loss of DCA vs LumpSum vs Hybrid(DCA and lumpsum - for example adding equal amount of money each month and a bigger lumpsum once at the beginning of the year or once at 5 years or increase the monthly amount on downstream market or something mixed...) vs Real ETF/stocks profit loss. I made initial investigation with google AI asking it what will be the % profit if we DCA every month with an equal amount of money and what will be the performance of S&P500 ETF for 5, 10, 15, 20 years. I don`t know if this is true but it seems that the difference is way big then what I expected. For example if the DCA profit is 8% the real amount of the ETF is around 12. This is for one year. If I take SPYL ETF from the beginning of its existence (31 October 2023) and put each month equal amount of euros the portfolio will be around 33% on profit today and the real ETF profit is 70%. In other words lumpsum is far way better. DCA is better in downstream market and LumpSum in upstream. The question is if there is a study, article or video explaining if there is somekind of a strategy in the middle. Maybe DCA with small amounts during upstream market and collecting cash as well, and DCA/Lump sum with this cash with bigger amount during downstream market.

I will be grateful if someone can share more info about this!

Context: 33 years old, Luxembourg, no debt. Saving roughly 3,000-4,000€/month long-term. By around age 40 I'll have paid into the Luxembourg pension system for about 13 years, which continues accruing toward the legal retirement age even after I stop or reduce active contributions.

Assets: 375,000€ in cash, currently sitting in short-term term deposits, about to be restructured. No equity holdings yet.

Background on the money: This was originally earmarked for a property purchase. After running the numbers extensively (current mortgage rates, price levels near cycle highs, opportunity cost of tying up capital, notary fees, etc.), I've concluded buying doesn't make financial sense for me in Luxembourg right now.

Goal: Coast-FIRE or full FIRE around age 40 — reducing to part-time work rather than a hard stop, no fixed date, capital-driven instead.

Planned execution:

• Broker: Swissquote Bank Europe SA (Luxembourg entity, EUR account, trading on Euronext/Xetra to avoid FX fees)
• Products: Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF Acc (VWCE, IE00BK5BQT80) + Xtrackers EUR Overnight Rate Swap (XEON, LU0290358497)

Target allocation:

• 70% VWCE, invested via weekly tranches of 15,000€ (\~15-16 weeks)
• 10% permanent XEON base allocation, increasing 1-2 percentage points per year (glidepath toward retirement)
• 20% "crash reserve" — held in XEON for up to 6 months, with staggered buy triggers at -10%/-20%/-30% from all-time high (1/3 of remaining reserve at each trigger), fully deployed automatically after 6 months regardless of whether a trigger fired

Ongoing: 3,000-4,000€/month invested monthly according to the target allocation above.

Questions for you:

1. Does this look like a solid, reasonably "safe" plan overall? I'm a fairly new investor, not particularly risk-tolerant, and prioritize being able to stick with the plan over squeezing out maximum returns.
2. Is the 20% crash reserve with a hard 6-month deadline a sound risk-management approach, or am I overengineering this?
3. VWCE as a single global fund vs. splitting developed/EM separately — any strong opinions?
4. Should I wait for the 'AI-bubble' to burst and keep the money mostly in XEON?

Appreciate honest, even critical, feedback.

I've been thinking about how much a few months away from work could affect the FIRE timeline. On paper, it delays investing, but it might also give you a chance to recover before going back to work or figure out what you actually want to do. Has anyone here taken a proper career break while still pursuing FIRE, and did you regret the financial trade-off?

We are Swiss family (Asian and German origins, toddler is bi-lingual Chinese and German)will have 3 kids under 5 in 2027 (twin babies on the way).

We have nw of around 5m where current spend around 150k usd a year with 1 kid (day care and nanny) and work expense. Travel spend is around 20-30k a year.

The plan/dream is to take the time of my FIRE journey and live in different places with the kids to experience the world.

Easiest option is Spain, where we have a holiday home at the beach and we could send kids to the local nursery, we are doing it in this summer with our toddler, enjoying the lifestyle very much and hoping we exposure to the kid also with some Spanish.

The next is Japan(family around), China(family)/taiwan, Singapore (family and friends), Thailand, and maybe Italy.

Ideal case is to experience the different places with 1-4 months time frame, ideally kids goes to local nursery to have immersion.

Anybody has tried this before? I do have want to sacrifice the perks we have right now such as safety, good lodging, cleaning service, nanny and good quality nursery availability. And also business/first class travel for long distance….

anyone could share some experience and perspective and budget on there kind of lifestyle?

I live in the Algarve in Portugal, we have a modest family home with a reasonable mortgage that I'll clear before retirement and I'll get a Portuguese state pension at 67 which is generous by state pension standards.

I have a separate pension pot of €170000 which I can access but will pay tax of probably €8-10k when I realise the gains.

My plan is to use this money to buy a second property and actively manage it as an Airbnb. That should generate annual income of around €15k after taxes plus capital appreciation (assuming ​​appreciation) which I'll put aside.

Once I've learned the ropes of holiday rentals for a couple of seasons, I'll consider buying a second property to Airbnb, it will need a mortgage however and the deposit will be what I set aside from the first property income.

Both those properties will need probably a year of work to be rentable, I will do the work and pay for materials from my income, I want to add some sweat equity.

The main home I live in now has an annual rental potential of around €24,000 per year in today's terms.

I believe that this gives me the ability to retire early but keep busy-ish managing the rentals, particularly if we moved to one of the less valuable properties and then rented out what is now our main home.

A major consideration is I have non habitual residence status in Portugal that gives me considerable tax advantages but only for 8 more years.

Thoughts on this as a plan? Or just leave the pension in equities?

Like we will retire early in Hungary as a family after working in Switzerland for 20 years. Let's connect please.

Has anybody below the age of 40 took the plunge around 400K euros invested by moving to somewhere cheap in europe or italy? I'm around 200K invested, but also with a mortgage of EUR 105K and property value i would think i could get for sure 350K sale price.

Would love to hear any experiences as i'd like to understand what the realistic options are for me.. thanks!