[{"content":"The debut My history with FIRE dates back to a few years. But even before getting to know the FIRE ideology, as a teen boy, I already had a very clear and immature projection on how my future money situation would be: a very successful entrepreneur counting my money in millions! I began reading books about money pretty early on and that just gave me a false confidence that I knew a lot about money and that it would be easy to be rich. I even discussed those subjects with my friends (with similar interests of course) with such confidence that people believed me as if I had achieved great wealth, even though I had nothing to show for.\nWell for my defense, I did make some money before even finishing my diploma (high school) but very far from the amounts I dreamed of. Then after finishing school, I got to know the reality of the labor market. I landed a good job in a very respected company and here too, the awe of the people around me, knowing I got that job made me feel good and confident about my capacity of making money.\nBut pretty quickly the daily routine of a 9-5 job and the okay salary got the best of me and I entered a weird phase that I can\u0026rsquo;t really explain clearly. I lost the desire of making more money and achieving goals, I lost that hunger and motivation that I had. I also got in a comfortable place where my salary could provide for me and my soon to be wife. That led to a credit of which I\u0026rsquo;m not proud of.\nLife went on Soon enough there was a rent to pay, home insurance and all the bills that come from living on your own. That for me was and continues to be totally worth it! I couldn\u0026rsquo;t imagine giving up my own place, even if that means walking a slower path to FIRE. So for me those were the good expenses, the ones I am happy to pay. But at the time I was not very aware of spending and with each salary raise, came the according lifestyle inflation. We got comfortable with the traveling abroad, eating at restaurant regularly and ordering food regularly.\nAs long as I had an amount of money as an emergency fund, it looked great. But looking back, that \u0026ldquo;safety fund\u0026rdquo; would get me nowhere. It was just enough to get groceries for 2-3 weeks if everything went wrong.\nWhen the pandemic hit, we got lucky and I switched over to working from home without losing one single day of work. And the same amount of money continued to come in but since everything was on lock down there was barely anything going out. This was like a wake up call. For the first time, I saw how much money was going out, without much to show for. So thinking what to do with money and how to spend it more efficiently, began taking up more space in my head.\nAt the same time we were having some issues with our rented place and I really got tired of dealing with our landlord. So we began looking for another place, ideally to buy if we would find a house we could afford but in the worst case just to move out and rent elsewhere. We also felt that the small apartment we had was getting tight and we would enjoy some more space. After a lot of searching and administrative work we found a great deal. We would pay about 1/3 more than our monthly rent, to buy a house that was 3.5 times larger and with a garden (not so much of a luxury after spending so much time locked in a small closed apartment with no outdoor space).\nThis sounded like the answer to my \u0026ldquo;money well spent\u0026rdquo; search. So I ran calculations for about 80 hours total (yes, I love my spreadsheets) to make sure this was a wise decision and an endeavor worth pursuing. I added every number I could think of, some hypothetical scenarios, some more realistic but I wanted to be sure that I was conscious of the choice I was going to make, the same choice that would lock me in for 30 years of credit.\nThe mortgage The mortgage had a powerful effect on me, not only did it change my perception of money but it made me reevaluate my life choices and goals. I began thinking more seriously about the amounts of money that I needed to save in order to be able to pay for the mortgage comfortably. But also thought about the fact that if I had done this earlier, I would have been able to get a better deal on the mortgage and since the house market has been going up for so long, I would have cheaper house prices too.\nIn the end, it turned out to be an excellent choice and assisted with luck, excellent timing as well. After all my calculations and observing the world state at that moment (during the pandemic), the 30 year fixed rate seemed like a good option, I then signed a 1.73% interest rate mortgage (all fees included) for a total payback of 617'895,59€ (what matters is not how much money you are borrowing but the total money you are going to pay back).\nOnly a few month after moving to the new house the economic situation got worse. The apartment we were renting, saw 2 increases in half a year and got very close to monthly payment locked for 30 years. Interest rates skyrocketed for a few month and then settled a little bit, but they have not been close to what I got on my mortgage. I am very happy that I seized the opportunity right when a lot of friends and family were worried that I was taking that step at the wrong moment.\nFIRE accelerant All that thinking got me to a place that I am proud of. I thought: before moving and beginning to pay the increase in my monthly housing expense, I had to also put money where it would work for me! So a few months before moving I did what I knew I should have done much earlier. I opened an account in a broker and made my first long term investment. If felt a little bit scary to navigate all the unknowns by my own, but I did it anyway. I also committed to not miss any monthly payment and if for some reason I would miss that payment, it would be like a very high priority bill that I would have to pay as soon as money would come in.\nI had the basic knowledge of FIRE at the moment since I had read blogs about it. But what really pushed me was a part of a book I had read (by Tony Robbins) that said that most people would be better off just investing in S\u0026amp;P500, rather than trying to time the market. So I knew, I had to do it! And as soon as I ran into some struggles, I went looking for an answer on the internet. And this lead me back to the same stuff I had read years before. Only this time, it hit differently!\nThis was the gasoline to my FIRE. I got obsessed and in the span of a few weeks, I had read all the posts of very well known FIRE blogs. I went through all the episodes of 2 known podcasts on the subject (I prefer not to count the hours 🙂) and began reading books about it too. I was so locked in the subject that I began to have feelings of regret for all the bad money choices done before that moment. I began calculating the money lost, had I followed the investment advice years before\u0026hellip; Seeing those numbers hurt the most (still today), but it also cemented the idea of how powerful compound interest really is!\nSince then I have been following my commitment strictly. I end up even surpassing each year\u0026rsquo;s goal with an additional investment that I do at least once a year. But I also experienced (in a small scale) what much of the bloggers/podcaster talk about: the extremism of Fire. Diving so deep in the subject didn\u0026rsquo;t leave much space to think about other stuff and it lead to changing my mental calculation system, the one that evaluates if something is worth the money or not. And you guessed it\u0026hellip; almost nothing was. I went to the point where I didn\u0026rsquo;t even spend money on stuff that brought me happiness before. And emotionally I could feel that toll.\nLuckily my wife and I complement each other very well and she is a huge help when I need to find balance in my life. Her point of view and also seeing how much that drastic cut impacted her, helped me find some balance (I also read a book about it that helped a lot).\nBalancing it out Now, I think I have a much healthier relationship with money. I see it as what it is: a way of exchanging value. And sometimes you get some good value by using it right there and then, sometimes it is better invested for later use and where it can work for you while waiting. With all these experiences, some initiatives came out. that are working out great for me and my family:\nWe each get a monthly allowance to spend how we see fit, without worrying about budgets and better spending. We also don\u0026rsquo;t judge any of that spending in any way. (I track mine but my wife doesn\u0026rsquo;t) We have a consequent travel budget since that is the biggest passion we share as a family and where lots of good memories are created. We also feel that we grow with some of our travels. There is something special about seeing other people living their life differently, it opens up horizons. Removing myself from the day-to-day trenches, has gotten me to huge breakthroughs in my personal life. Therefore we gladly spend some good percentage of our income in this category. We are at a very comfortable level in our life where I sometimes feel that added comfort won\u0026rsquo;t be worth it. I think that comfort can be a bad thing: it makes me lazy and less flexible to move back to previous levels of comfort. At a certain point, the money you need to put in, to increase the comfort notably, gets disproportional, and you need to put larger and larger amounts of money to noticeably increase comfort. That is why for the foreseeable future, we are avoiding any lifestyle inflation. We are doing this by redirecting any increase in salary or decrease in expenses into our investments. These past experiences also had me forge my own opinion on subjects, where other people disagree. For example, I don\u0026rsquo;t avoid debt at any cost\u0026hellip; For me it is just part of a calculation. If you take a credit to buy something, whatever it is, you then need to calculate the total cost of your credit and not only what you paid your seller. But if that calculation adds up and the amount of pleasure/value you get out of the amount of money you are going to pay, that\u0026rsquo;s fine by me. Of course, you can\u0026rsquo;t go around making credits for everything and tying up so much money that you lose freedom but as long as it is a conscious and calculated choice I don\u0026rsquo;t see a problem.\nTo explain this very easily, let\u0026rsquo;s use a very simple and not realistic scenario: let\u0026rsquo;s say I want to get a camera. I am ready to pay 250€ for that camera. If I need to borrow money for it, as long as the total price of my loan (amount borrowed + interest paid) is not superior to those 250€, it makes sense to borrow for it. Yes, you could get it for cheaper by not paying interest, but at the end of the day, the calculation is in the value that the money spent will get me! And not purely on the cheapest option possible.\nAnother unpopular opinion: I don\u0026rsquo;t like to count my house in my net worth. Because I am not planning on moving out and I can\u0026rsquo;t use the value of the house unless I do. The only moment where I think this would make sense is: if I would sell the house, to move to a much cheaper country. But in that scenario, I would also need a living place and the only amount that would make it to the net worth is the difference once you sell the actual house and get the new living place. Since this is not what I am planning for, I don\u0026rsquo;t count it in my net worth.\nOngoing journey This leads us to today. Like the name of the blog suggest, I am still on the road to fire. And per my calculations, I will be on it for quite a while. This is why I got the desire of sharing this journey with fellow readers. I am very grateful of other people opening up the way with such great content and felt inspired to do the same. I hope to be helpful for people located in Europe and maybe even more specifically in Luxembourg, since most material is for the USA.\nIf you are interested in joining in for this adventure, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or coming back regularly to read the new posts. If you want to reach out, you can send me an email as well.\n","permalink":"https://www.roadtofire.eu/posts/road-to-fire/","summary":"\u003ch2 id=\"the-debut\"\u003eThe debut\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy history with FIRE dates back to a few years. But even before getting to know the FIRE ideology, as a teen boy, I already had a very clear and immature projection on how my future money situation would be: a very successful entrepreneur counting my money in millions!\nI began reading books about money pretty early on and that just gave me a false confidence that I knew a lot about money and that it would be easy to be rich. I even discussed those subjects with my friends (with similar interests of course) with such confidence that people believed me as if I had achieved great wealth, even though I had nothing to show for.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Road to FIRE"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;I am a random guy in Luxembourg trying to achieve FIRE without sacrificing good years of my life. This is not an easy deed and this is also the reason this blog exists. I hope that you find any useful information in here and I hope I can help you or at least inspire you in your own journey.\nIn this blog you will find a lot of information about my actual journey. This serves as an accountability partner for myself and also as transparency to you. The other part of the blog will be general information about FIRE or finances that I think could be useful for someone. Reading blogs of other people and consuming so much content regarding FIRE and finances is my motivation to also share my story and my point of view, hoping to have at least some impact on you, like others had on me.\nI love transparency and therefore I commit to being transparent with you. I have no intention on selling anything to you here but if that changes, I will make sure to let you know.\nFinally, take this as a general disclaimer, but even if it sounds obvious to me I prefer to reiterate: Everything written on this blog is my opinion only and in no way constitutes financial advise. Also I don\u0026rsquo;t know everything and like everyone else, my opinion is biased and shaped by my own life, so feel free to disagree with me and to consider what you read here only as one more opinion in a very large sea of opinions.\u0026rdquo;\nIf you want to get in touch, feel free to send me an email. I will do my best to answer in my free time.\n","permalink":"https://www.roadtofire.eu/about/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I am a random guy in Luxembourg trying to achieve FIRE without sacrificing good years of my life. This is not an easy deed and this is also the reason this blog exists. I hope that you find any useful information in here and I hope I can help you or at least inspire you in your own journey.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this blog you will find a lot of information about \u003ca href=\"/journey\"\u003emy actual journey\u003c/a\u003e. This serves as an accountability partner for myself and also as transparency to you. The other part of the blog will be general information about FIRE or finances that I think could be useful for someone. Reading blogs of other people and consuming so much content regarding FIRE and finances is my motivation to also share my story and my point of view, hoping to have at least some impact on you, like others had on me.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"About"},{"content":"\rHere you can find where I\u0026rsquo;m at on my journey to FIRE. This is by no means bragging, I am clearly in no position to do so\u0026hellip; The goal is to inspire you, if you are ahead congratulations and you can use this as a motivation to keep consistent and not let me catch you. If you are not so far then I hope this motivates you to begin and keep up with the good work!\nI use Firefly III to track all my money, in and out. And I have done it retroactively for all the money I earned and spent even as a teenager. Yes, I know\u0026hellip; I like spreadsheets and tracking. But for the purpose of this blog, I summed the numbers in more broad categories and lost a lot of detail because I don\u0026rsquo;t think it would help you in any specific way and would only expose myself for nothing.\nNetworth The progression of my net worth, starting in 2024. Since I own a house but I don\u0026rsquo;t like to count it as an asset (discussion for a another day), I have separated it, together with the mortgage. networth\rIncome and investing The history of income and investing rate. incomeInvestRate\rExpenses Last year\u0026rsquo;s expenses by category.\nlastYearExpense\r","permalink":"https://www.roadtofire.eu/journey/","summary":"\u003cscript src=\"https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/chart.js\"\u003e\u003c/script\u003e\r\n\u003cscript src=\"/js/charts.js\"\u003e\u003c/script\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere you can find where I\u0026rsquo;m at on my journey to FIRE. This is by no means bragging, I am clearly in no position to do so\u0026hellip; The goal is to inspire you, if you are ahead congratulations and you can use this as a motivation to keep consistent and not let me catch you. If you are not so far then I hope this motivates you to begin and keep up with the good work!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Journey"},{"content":"There is an RSS feed available. You can subscribe here if you like.\nSoftware I am not about flashy things and I love to have simple and functional stuff. It is no different with my software. I like to be the owner of my data!\nFirefly III - Financial tracking (big up to James Cole for making and maintaining such a wonderful app for free \u0026#x2764;\u0026#xfe0f;) Portolio Performance - Simple and efficient portfolio tracker Blogs Mr Money Mustache (US based) - He doesn\u0026rsquo;t need introductions in the FIRE milieu but he has to be here anyway. Mad Fientist (US based + Scotland) - My favorite blog Podcasts Mad Fientist (US based + Scotland) - Have I mentioned that this is my favorite podcast ? Financial independence Europe (Europe) - I haven\u0026rsquo;t heard all of it but contains a lot of good information for Europeans pursuing FIRE. FIRE Talks Portugal (Portugal based) - Amazing information for portuguese people but also very good information about FIRE in general. Huberman Lab - Great scientist covering a lot of subjects but mainly health related. Tony Robbins - Again, he needs no introduction. I cherry pick the episodes to listen but I am very rarely disappointed. Tom Bilyeu also produces a lot of content and there is some really good, but I would also suggest to cherry pick. Books How to Win Friends \u0026amp; Influence People (by Dale Carnegie) - This book should be studied in school ! Die with Zero (by Bill Perkins) - Being balanced on the journey to FIRE The Power of Habit (by Charles Duhigg) - Very useful for understanding how habits are formed and create new ones Emotions Revealed (by Paul Ekman) - This subject is a passion of mine. There are also other very interesting books by the same author but this one is my favorite. No More Mr. Nice Guy (by Robert A. Glover) - This has helped me out when I was needing it very much and putting everyone else first. Pathfinders (by J.L. Collins) - Inspiring stories of how other people achieved FIRE or overcame their difficulties on the way there. ","permalink":"https://www.roadtofire.eu/resources/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThere is an RSS feed available. You can subscribe \u003ca href=\"https://www.roadtofire.eu/index.xml\"\u003ehere\u003c/a\u003e if you like.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"software\"\u003eSoftware\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am not about flashy things and I love to have simple and functional stuff. It is no different with my software. I like to be the owner of my data!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://github.com/firefly-iii/firefly-iii\"\u003eFirefly III\u003c/a\u003e - Financial tracking (big up to James Cole for making and maintaining such a wonderful app for free \u0026#x2764;\u0026#xfe0f;)\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.portfolio-performance.info/en/\"\u003ePortolio Performance\u003c/a\u003e - Simple and efficient portfolio tracker\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"blogs\"\u003eBlogs\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/\"\u003eMr Money Mustache\u003c/a\u003e \u003cem\u003e(US based)\u003c/em\u003e - He doesn\u0026rsquo;t need introductions in the FIRE milieu but he has to be here anyway.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.madfientist.com/\"\u003eMad Fientist\u003c/a\u003e \u003cem\u003e(US based + Scotland)\u003c/em\u003e - My favorite blog\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"podcasts\"\u003ePodcasts\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.madfientist.com/podcast/\"\u003eMad Fientist\u003c/a\u003e \u003cem\u003e(US based + Scotland)\u003c/em\u003e - Have I mentioned that this is my favorite podcast ?\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.iheart.com/podcast/256-financial-independence-eur-31156652/\"\u003eFinancial independence Europe\u003c/a\u003e \u003cem\u003e(Europe)\u003c/em\u003e - I haven\u0026rsquo;t heard all of it but contains a lot of good information for Europeans pursuing FIRE.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://open.spotify.com/show/7p19Xg48SmFDRJGPHWU3dy\"\u003eFIRE Talks Portugal\u003c/a\u003e \u003cem\u003e(Portugal based)\u003c/em\u003e - Amazing information for portuguese people but also very good information about FIRE in general.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.hubermanlab.com/all-episodes\"\u003eHuberman Lab\u003c/a\u003e - Great scientist covering a lot of subjects but mainly health related.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.tonyrobbins.com/podcasts\"\u003eTony Robbins\u003c/a\u003e - Again, he needs no introduction. I cherry pick the episodes to listen but I am very rarely disappointed.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTom Bilyeu also produces a lot of content and there is some really good, but I would also suggest to cherry pick.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"books\"\u003eBooks\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4865.How_to_Win_Friends_Influence_People\"\u003eHow to Win Friends \u0026amp; Influence People\u003c/a\u003e \u003cem\u003e(by Dale Carnegie)\u003c/em\u003e - This book should be studied in school !\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52950915-die-with-zero\"\u003eDie with Zero\u003c/a\u003e \u003cem\u003e(by Bill Perkins)\u003c/em\u003e - Being balanced on the journey to FIRE\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12609433-the-power-of-habit\"\u003eThe Power of Habit\u003c/a\u003e \u003cem\u003e(by Charles Duhigg)\u003c/em\u003e - Very useful for understanding how habits are formed and create new ones\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/156462.Emotions_Revealed\"\u003eEmotions Revealed\u003c/a\u003e \u003cem\u003e(by Paul Ekman)\u003c/em\u003e - This subject is a passion of mine. There are also other very interesting books by the same author but this one is my favorite.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/97642.No_More_Mr_Nice_Guy\"\u003eNo More Mr. Nice Guy\u003c/a\u003e \u003cem\u003e(by Robert A. Glover)\u003c/em\u003e - This has helped me out when I was needing it very much and putting everyone else first.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/65211499-pathfinders?from_search=true\u0026amp;from_srp=true\u0026amp;qid=4ot6zW0DaZ\u0026amp;rank=2\"\u003ePathfinders\u003c/a\u003e \u003cem\u003e(by J.L. Collins)\u003c/em\u003e - Inspiring stories of how other people achieved FIRE or overcame their difficulties on the way there.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e","title":"Resources"}]