Financial Freedom Sloth

achieving financial freedom one lazy step at a time

Page 7 of 15

Monthly Expense report: January

Nothing broke in January! After December, where almost everything broke I count this as a success! January, in my book, is the month where we, slowly, start to rebuild.

Income: 2 202,60 euro

Expenses: 1 661,30 euro

Savings: 541,30 euro or 24,6%

Income

The bonus unfortunately only comes once twice a year so it is back to the ‘normal’ income of around 2 200 euro. I have come to realize that getting to a higher savings rate is only acivable for me if I would increase my income. Then again, I usually am pretty close to savings 25% of my income which actual means I am allready financial free for 25% of my time without taking the stash into account since I only need to work three weeks to earn enought money to live four weeks. I find that a very comforting thought!

Expenses

Expenses stood at 1 660 euro. Part of me wants to say this is pretty good since it also covers 320 euro for a new motor vest and all weather motor pants. For the last year I have been making due with what I had but the broken zipper on my winter vest in December forced my hand and I finally purchased a decent motor vest. When (and that is a definite when, not if) I ever kiss the ground while going 90 km/h I will be very gratefull for the purchase. Meanwhile I am enjoying the added comfort during these winter months! The 1 660 euro also covers 100 euro in birthday gift for the godchild. Something I am happy to give and once our house is renovated am planning to greatly increase.

So that was the good part. The bad part is 128 euro spend on sandwiches at work and snacks for in the evening. The relaunch of the diet is not going all that well. I kind of crash and burned in this regard. I need to write about it. But a big part is the work situation. Which I also need to write about. But actually, the work situation is also THE reason why I have been blogging a lot less the last months because I come home exhausted and have 0 interested in sitting behind a PC at home as well. I will dive deeper into it in the next post I promise.

I actually have a few intersting tid bits to post about:

The work situation.

Buying a car.

Not getting a loan for the car because some credit organization somehow decided I am no good for a 7,000 euro loan. Even if my net worth is close to 350,000 euro and I save 500 euro a month!

And the really interesting one: how last year I lost 90,000 euro in the stock market. I’ll give you a very short recap of that one: leverage can be a bitch and yes it really hurts. Keep your questions for the actual post, even though most of it happened in February last year the wound is still a open hole of pain and misery. But also do not worry, I am fine!

Monthly expense report: December

Stuff broke in December. Actually a lot of stuff broke in December. Like our PC, our car, the zipper on my coat and part of my sanity … For the moment this has had little repercussions on my spending but the big ticket item
(a new car) is coming …

Income: 3 489,83 euro

Expenses: 1 551,50 euro

Savings: 1 938,33 euro of a whopping 55,5%

Income

The much higher income is due to my job paying a Christmas bonus or 13th month as it is often referred to in Belgium.

In April/May we are also eligible for a bonus if we meet certain goals (we will) which will also be close to an extra month of wages. And since I have worked all off 2018 for this company I will have 30 holiday days that year. So in 2019 I will get paid close to 14 months of wages for 10,5 months of work. Ok, why the hell am I striving for early retirment again? O right, I am a lazy weirdo.,,

Expenses

Expenses are 1 551,50 euro and I am particulary proud of this as they also entail 300 euro I personally chipped in to but the new computer. The rest of the purchase is paid from our joint account but I wanted a decent graphics card the gilfriend has absolutely no need for so I paid it myself. So minus this purchase I only spend 250 euro and 45 euro of those went to excellent videosoftware via a humble bundle (25 euro for Movie studio 15 is a steal! ) and a game I have been drooling over for a year but couldn’t play on the old computer. PC gaming wise I am set for the next year as i have some older games on Steam I haven’t played in the last year or two because the old computer was getting so slow …

All in all we end the year with good buffers in the checking and savings account. The car purchase will oblitarate those in the new year and the full year recap for 2018 will tell you how my stash was decimated during 2018. It’s a tale of overleverage and greed that left me battered and bruised at the side of the road but I will try to make it a fun read for you my loyal followers!

Monthly expense report: November

Income:  2 167 euro

Expenses:  1 583,50 euro

Savings:  583,50 euro

November was a pretty standard month form an income and expense point of view.

Income was only the job income. November 15 I was one year at the current company so an update is needed on that front but work has been so insanely busy the last weeks that I really didn’t feel like starting up the old desktop at home. It also explains the lack of posts over the last month. This sloth is tired in the evening.

Expenses

Didn’t buy a new laser, still want to! I did buy some new graphic novels so the itch to buy something ‘fun’ is satisfied for the time being. The graphic novels came to 88 euro.

We also visited a friend in Brussels, The friend is a big Asia nut so we visited a -cheap- Japanese restaurant. I went to talk about an online side gig idea I have tumbling around in my head for some time now. Turns out the friend is even more skilled than I thought! I tried to nudge him into starting his own thing as he could do all the work himself and he does like to travel Asia for months on end. I wasn’t really successful as he has witnessed in his immediately family the high price that comes with building out a business empire. He is part too smart and part too lazy (there is a reason I get along with him!) to go down that rabbit hole …I would still over to convince him that there is a middle ground. Anyway, the visit did cost me 43 euro but was money well spend.

On a more practical front I also spend 72 for some new underwear and 21 euro on new swimshorts. Both things desperately needed. Well, desperately needed according to the misses, a sloth knows no shame …

On the’ bad’front: also spend some money on sandwiches at work. The diet is still not going that good. I actually even started skipping some of my swimming!! It merits its own post. But I am a stress eater and did I mention that work has been insanely busy? I am recognizing the signs from my time at the back office for the trading floor of the big bank. Luckily management is aware that there is a ‘support-situation’ at the moment. Management also knows that I have been putting the pedal to the metal for the last couple of months. So I have told them that this will only last until after new year. And to not take my current productivity as something to count on long term. I’ll see how it goes.

I do not envy them as some tough decisions will need to be made. I also need to bite the bullet and not only keep up the insane work volume at work but in my free time actually start working on one of those ‘fun-to me’ work projects that needs to be done but nobody at work has the time to do. For once in my life I want to be strategic about it and leverage my current strong position into something that has long term benefits for me. Fortune favors the well prepared…

On a totally unrelated note. Cheesy finance and geldnerd have a very different definition of a backyard. To parafrase an old australian saying: that’s not a backyard, this is a backyard …

Our backyard, and yes that is a pig on the right …

Monthly expense report: October

Income: 2 195 euro

Expenses: 1 656,50 euro

Savings:  535,50 euro

With no more birthday presents and tickets to sell, income fell back to the usual amount earned by working. This might drop a little bit going forward as from 1 November we got hospitalization insurance via work! This will cost us around 12 euro a month but will cover any costs above 250 euro if we end up in a hospital for any reason. Yes, the girlfriend is also covered with those 12 euro! So we are pretty happy with it as work from the girlfriend does not offer any and we didn’t have this insurance since I got fired at the big bank in March 2016.

I do -finally- have an idea for a website/on line community that might  be profitable to run. We’ll see but hopefully it is successful and I can boost the income a bit next year. At the very least I’ll pick up some new skills in building it.

Expenses

The problems with the Vespa seem to be in the past! Joehoe! And very glad this money drain finally ended.

The 1 656 euro spending is actually pretty good when you take into account the fact that this month I needed to pay for my swimming pool subscription for the next year. Going swimming costs me 270 euro. This comes down to around 2 euro per swim. Which is pretty reasonable. Even if it wasn’t, there is no other way to swim cheaper than this. And it is the exercise I enjoy doing the most. I view it as a small price to pay for a better health.

I did spend a bit to much for sandwiches at work. It is not really a big amount but since it is bad for the diet any euro spend on it is not good. I need to step up my game in that area but I’ll go deeper into it in the upcoming health report.

Curious thing also happened. I felt to need to spend money on fun thing. I still have it actually. After the Vespa soaking up money, and now the swimming abonnement. Plus a decent amount spend on renovation the utility room I just want to spend money on something frivolous. Like another party laser for in our house. Or these music reactive lights. You now, completely useless crap. It has been a pretty long while since I had this urge. At the moment I can still fight it back but if I am below my 1 500 euro spending goal at the end of November I might just give in .. Because, well, shiny lights and such. …

Pension and FIRE

This pension shuffle post over at Cheesy finance reminded me I also need to do a post about pensions.

The Belgian pension has three different components.

The first component is the official government component. As an employee there is not a great deal that can be done about this. It will be what it will be. It is also a very complex subject. Personally I would love to be able to speak to somebody who is an expert to see what the impact of FIRE on the official pension will be. What I do know is that with the guaranteed minimum pension and the ceiling the government implements my approach of working a bit after FIRE might not only be more tax efficient but also more pension efficient.

It boils down to this: above a certain amount earned you are still paying pension contributions but those do not result in a higher pension since you have already reached the ceiling for that. There is a guaranteed minimum pension if you reach the 30 years threshold of employment (or time that is equivalent to working like unemployment and pregnancy leave and such).

So pulling the plug earlier and limping your way across those thirty years with a combination of some work and unemployment should result in a better pension than working full throttle for say 25 years and then completely stop with working. Should. Like I said, I would really love to have an expert in this run a few simulations. If somebody knows of somebody please send him my way! It could be an interesting topic to delve into deeper at a FIRE meet-up.

The second component is the additional pension you can get from your employer (this comes in the form of a group insurance thing.

This is the part where a pension shuffle as described in the guest post at Cheesy finance can come in handy. So when you have changed employer and you are dragging an old pension scheme of the previous employer with you it can be interesting to check out if it is not better to fold it into the the one offered by your new employer.

I am in this boat. But the one of my previous employer is actually pretty good (return and cost wise) so I have decided to keep it there. I have to add that it is great to ‘earn’ an additional 1.500 euro (it went from 15 640 euro to 17 014 euro last year) at an employer you have left 3 years ago. So I am just going to leave it there for the moment.

On the other hand, there is no way to get an early payment of this. I just just view it as an extra when I reach 65 years (or perhaps 67?) but do not take it into account for my FIRE plans.

The third component is the individual savings account every adult Belgian can do.

Whendoyouretire put up some calculations on the money mustache forum here. I did ask him to turn it into a post on his blog but these youngsters today with all their drugs and partying … 😉

When striving for FIRE, I am of the conviction not to bother with it because:

  • The amount you can put in, is low (less than 1.000 euro a year)
  • The return, even with the tax refund, isn’t that good (see the calculations of whendoyouretire)
  • Costs are usually high
  • You only have access to the money when 65 (or perhaps in the future 67)
  • Do your really trust the government not to change the conditions of this in their favor in the next 20 – 30 years? There is a lot of money on that pot and it can’t go nowhere. In government language that means ‘easy pray’ …

So to sum it up:

For the official Belgian government pension I (or we as the Belgian FIRE community) should really speak to an expert about the impact of our FIRE plans on this.

For your employer pension plan, check if you have one from a former employer laying around and see if it is interesting to fold it into your current one.

For the personal pension savings plan: don’t bother.

The health report – October

The summer seems to continue forever in Belgium so our winter hibernation has also been postponed a bit. There were a few restaurant visits and a dinner date. Despite i was able to  refocused my efforts on the diet. It was a little bit of a bumpy start but in the end I got there.

Fase 1: Swimming

Perfect score on this account. Didn’t mis one session. And I have the impression I even got a little bit faster this last month.

Fase 2: a very strict diet

Like I said, a bumpy start. Getting back to the hyper focused diet stage wasn’t that easy. The first two weeks I gradually improved. But the small improvements made me feel a whole lot better. This in turn helped me to get my focus back 100%. The clubbing also helped! Yes, I want to be that 50 year old geezer with the great body, banging his head out on some old trance tunes and embarrassing his wife #relationshipgoals. So the last two weeks were spot on!

The numbers:

Date: weight neck chest belly arm
24-10-2017 114 kg 43 cm 124 cm 124 cm 39 cm
15-5-2018 104 kg 42 cm 115 cm 114,5 cm 38 cm
17-6-2018 104 kg 42 cm 118 cm 115 cm 38 cm
15-7-2018 101 kg 41 cm 118 cm 115 cm 38 cm
15-8-2018 99 kg 41 cm 118 cm 113 cm 38 cm
15-9-2018 101 kg 41 cm 118 cm 114 cm 38 cm
15-10-2018 98 kg 41 cm 118 cm 113 cm 38 cm

Yes! An all time low and I got rid of the cm gained in the summer!

Perhaps even more important: I feel great! More energy, more power, more stamina. Although I celebrated my 44th birthday  end of August I actually feel younger (and a hell of a lot sexier).

Fase 3: fitness

Well, you can’t win them all. Not only did I not add the sit ups to my regime. I even skipped a whole week. Did make a little bit of progress:

date repetitions
15-8-2018 3 – 5 – 3 – 3 – 6
18-9-2018 4 – 5 – 5 – 5 – 7
15-10-2018 5 – 7 – 6 – 6 – 9

I think I am not that motivated to do them because I only do the push up. It’s not enough. 5 minutes and puff it is over.  I don’t get into a groove like I do with the swimming.

What I want to do is a full fitness set and really feel the muscles burning. But for that i need to wait until the utility room is ready and we have a place to set up my fitness bench (I checked, it was a hard no from the misses to set it up in the living room 😉

But there is some good news on that front. The paint is done (by dad and me). This week the floor goes in. After that, all we need is to get a big ass closet installed and the fitness bench can go in. i am guessing/hoping early December. until then I jsut need to remind myself that any progress i make with the push ups will pay dividends later.

But I have always been an all or nothing guy so this ‘little bit’ of fitness really isn’t my style. On the other hand, the all or nothing approach hasn’t really worked for me health wise the last 20 years. Perhaps moderation is key. The question is, can this old Sloth change its ways?

Monthly expense report: September

Finally a good month, saving wise! This good luck will however be short lived as the Vespa is in the shop again! But that are worries for later. Here are the numbers for September:

Income: 2 258,43 euro

Expenses: 1 601,20 euro

Savings:  657,23 euro

Income again a bit higher because I got another birthday present in September. But also because I sold some festival tickets I previously bought but ended up not being able to attend. Made a 10 euro profit on a 30 euro investment in 3 months time. In absolute numbers this is very small but return on investment wise this was a great return. This got us thinking so the girlfriend (because she is the big ‘going to parties’ person in our relationship) decided to run a little experiment and see if you can actually make some decent profits by buying tickets in the first – cheap – wave and selling them when it hits the second (or third) more expensive wave. More on this when the experiment is finished in December/ January.

Expenses

Those are reasonable for the month. With no Vespa expenses 1 600 euro is actually pretty high for me. But there is a lot of fun in those 1 600 euro expenses.

  • There was a private party with some friends at the beginning of the month
  • We went to The world of Tim Burton and ate an unbelievable delicious pizza afterwards. The World of Tim Burton was pretty cheap because you got a free ticket if you bought the weekend edition of De standaard. We finished that evening by rewatching Beetlejuice. You gotta love the old classics!
  • There was a 50th birthday gift for a friend (talk about an old classic;-) of ours.
  • I went to the theater and ate another pizza. Pizzahut this time, sometimes I like my pizza’s greasy and unhealthy. For those of you wondering about my diet, sue me modderfokker!
  • And the last weekend, the girlfriend and I went to another restaurant (the diet is fine, honesty!!) and out clubbing.

What can I say? We work hard, we play hard 😉

Without that last weekend extravaganza I would have actually stayed in my 1 500 euro budget. But this retro techno phase isn’t going to last. So we will enjoy this opportunity to listen to the old school classics the way they were intended: in a busy nightclub full with sweaty, half naked people (mental note: I really need to focus on the diet again).

 

 

As a little bonus for your viewing pleasure, a documentary I really enjoyed:

Thrive With Less from Thrive With Less on Vimeo.

The health report – September

Last month there was even more relaxing on the diet front than the month before. As said last time:  reaching my goal in December or February doesn’t really make any difference for me. And I wanted to enjoy the last month of summer without devoting all my time and energy to the diet. So I relaxed even more on the diet front. This off course, came with a price…

Fase 1: Swimming

I knew it was going a challenging 4 weeks with the parties I had planned  the pool being closed for cleaning. So I am really glad to report I only missed two swim sessions!

One was because we only got home after 18h on Sunday so the pool here was closed. i did discover there was a pool really close to where we stayed/partied so next year I’ll bring my swimming gear and might just skip the festivities to go swimming for an hour 😉

The other missed swim session also was on a Sunday because the pool was closed for cleaning. During the week I went to a swimming pool close to my work but I didn’t feel like doing that drive on Sunday as well. Taking all the obstacles into account I am pretty happy with only 2 missed sessions! I still went 10 times which comes down to 20 km’s of swimming.

Fase 2: A very strict diet

Well, not very strict this month… As explained above and in last months post I relaxed a bit to enjoy the last of the summer and then will go full throttle when it’s winter and there are no more summer activities to attend.

What was the damage? Let’s look at the numbers.

Date: weight neck chest belly arm
24-10-2017 114 kg 43 cm 124 cm 124 cm 39 cm
15-5-2018 104 kg 42 cm 115 cm 114,5 cm 38 cm
17-6-2018 104 kg 42 cm 118 cm 115 cm 38 cm
15-7-2018 101 kg 41 cm 118 cm 115 cm 38 cm
15-8-2018 99 kg 41 cm 118 cm 113 cm 38 cm
15-9-2018 101 kg 41 cm 118 cm 114 cm 38 cm

Ouch! Gained two kilo’s and one cm of belly back!!

This proves two things.

First: I really need to be strict to lose weight. Strict diet AND lots of exercise or weight lose just doesn’t happen for me. Some people can eat a little bit less and lose a few kilo’s. some people can start exercising a little bit and lose weight. Not me. I have to eat almost nothing and do lots of exercise to lose weight. All or nothing. It’s not just my personality but also my body. Which begs the question, did my body type shape my personality or is it the other way around?

Second: I have not yet build up enough muscles to get away with eating more. This despite the 3 x 2 km swimming every week and the push-ups I am now doing. So we better finish up our utility room so I can start with weights also.

Fase 3: fitness

Still doing the 7 weeks to 100 push-ups (even if I am now in week 8, lol). Still slow going.

date repetitions
15-8-2018 3 – 5 – 3 – 3 – 6
18-9-2018 4 – 5 – 5 – 5 – 7

 

The above is also 3 times a week, usually Monday – Wednesday – Friday.

I can notice the difference in upper body strength but gaining 2 kg’s probably didn’t help with the progress. As promised last time I’ll add sit-ups to this exercise regime as off Monday. With the renewed focus on the diet I am hoping to make a bit more progress here by next month.

Monthly expense report: August

If I had to sum up my expenses for August in one sentence it would be: the bloody Vespa again! Here are the -ugly- numbers.

 

Income: 2 338,44 euro

Expenses: 2 016,10 euro

Savings: 322,34 euro

 

Income is a bit higher because I had my birthday which means presents! Well actually only one from the parents as we have all but eliminated the back and forward giving of presents. I have all that I need and if I – rarely – want something I usually buy it.

Expenses blew up to the highest of the year. Above 2.000 euro thanks to …

Yep, the Vespa.

Last time the shop apparently did not solve the root cause of the coolant problem. So three weeks later the issue reared it’s ugly head once more and back to the shop it was. For another 620 euro bill. Most of it work time. I can’t say I am overjoyed with this as they should have found the issue the first time around. There is the possibility that the second issue developed after them fixing the water pomp but the Vespa made the same ticking sound it did after the first maintenance than it did before the maintenance. So I really think they missed the root cause, fixed the water pomp which was probably a symptom of the underlying issue (a crack in cylinder housing) and this time had to do a lot of the work again to fix the real problem. With me paying twice!

And a skilled mechanic appears not to come cheap.

Honestly, these maintenance bills have taken a bit away of the joy of driving the Vespa. But only a bit. Here is hoping for many carefree months of riding it and getting my joy back!

The lessons I take away from this are:

In the short time I am going to look for a ‘guy’ who not only will work on the Vespa at a lower hourly rate I am paying now but is also willing to teach me how to do most of the work myself. Thus, hopefully avoiding other big maintenance bills in the future.

Long term I will most definitely build myself an electrical speed monster of a bicycle! Building it myself will insure I know every little detail of it and be capable of doing all the maintenance myself. It is going to cost me time off course (most things are a trade off between money and time + effort) but I should pick up some valuable skills that will also serve me well after FIRE.

Now some people claim that a 13,7% savings rate is still descend but let’s be honest, this is the FIRE crowd. Even my usual 25% savings rate is at the low end of the spectrum. So high time for me to return to more acceptable savings. Half September I will have my partying behind me and then it will be a 100% focus on finance and health for the rest of the year.

The health report – August

Last month I relaxed a bit on the diet front, feeling I deserved a bit of a break and I wanted to enjoy the summer a bit. I’ll go into the details below. But all in all I am feeling pretty good!

Fase 1: Swimming

All good here. Didn’t miss a single session in the last month. I am also swimming a bit faster than I was a few months ago. Progress, yeah!

Next month is going to be a tough as I have 2 festivals and 1 party planned. Getting to the pool on Sunday is going to be a challenge. Perhaps I’ll just party hard till 8 AM and then go straight to the pool? Also, my pool is closed for 10 days for cleaning. I’ll look into Leuven to perhaps go swimming there. But those are worries for next month. Swim wise, the past month was great! Also starting the really like my shoulders! Nothing like swimming 3 times a week 2 km to build some nice shoulders!

Fase 2: a very strict diet

I was at 101 kg last month. Then I buckled down, smashed through the 100 kg all the way to 97 kg. Then I had three weeks of hard core dieting interchanged with eating a lot. A lot like in the extra large dominos pizza all on my own, burp!. I finished at 99 kg.

It was by choice as I realized that even by sticking to the very strict diet I would only reach my weight goal somewhere in November. That is the middle of winter. And reaching it in November, December or even January doesn’t really make any difference to me. There is some stuff I look forward to doing when I am at my ideal weight. Like buying some cool t-shirts. But none of it is in the winter. Winter for us is huddling down at the farm. We are half in hibernation during those months. And now it is still summer. With places to visit and stuff to do. I want to cut loose a bit for the month of August. So I am.

I am also, finally, loosing belly fat again. On of the most frustrating things is you do not get to chose where your body loses fat. I want to get rid of the belly. So what does my body do? Add fat first and foremost to the belly but only burn it the last! Looks like my body is finally running out of others places to burn fat and is dipping into the belly stash once again!

Date: weight neck chest belly arm
24-10-2017 114 kg 43 cm 124 cm 124 cm 39 cm
15-5-2018 104 kg 42 cm 115 cm 114,5 cm 38 cm
17-6-2018 104 kg 42 cm 118 cm 115 cm 38 cm
15-7-2018 101 kg 41 cm 118 cm 115 cm 38 cm
15-8-2018 99 kg 41 cm 118 cm 113 cm 38 cm

Yes, I know. I still need to work on viewing eating lots of greasy food as a reward. But I am more confident that I am going to keep it up. Even if, occasionally, I am less strict. I definitely noticed the extra large pizza went I went swimming 2 days later! So I have a correction mechanism in place to prevent me to pig out all the time. Especially now that I started with the fitness again.

Fase 3: fitness

I started with the 7 weeks to 100 push-ups. It is slow going.

Doing the beginner approach because being a couch potato for over a decade really killed my strength and I am still carrying around 15 kg of fat. I am also concentrating on getting my form right. So I am now doing week 2 for a second time. I am currently at 3 – 5 – 3 – 3 – 6. I’ll probably do week 2 on more time next week. But I can definitely see the progress. I also noticed the huge difference with the last time I tried this. I still was 115 kg heavy then and boy that was a disaster! So it is going a lot better minus the 15 kg of fat I have now. That really motivates me to keep going!

Like I mentioned above, the next month is pretty party heavy. So I am limiting the fitness to the push-ups. After the next update on 15 September I’ll add sit-ups to it. And after that, I’ll see when I can get my fitness equipment in our utility room. Slow and steady progress! It is the way of the sloth after all!

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