u/Helpful-Staff9562

What the title says. Which is best as a satellite to a core like VT to capture the best growth in AI/tech? Like a 10/15% ish

I’d be interested to hear how people are approaching the final stretch:

- What’s your FIRE number / target?

- How far are you from it?

- Do you plan to FIRE immediately once you hit the number, or just keep working and see how you feel?

- If you have a concrete plan for life after FIRE, what is it — and why?

- Have you factored in the possibility that your original plan gets disrupted? For example, work environments in Switzerland can be quite unstable, so you may end up having to FIRE earlier than expected.

- How old are you, when do you plan to FIRE, and when did you start your FIRE journey?

- What does your investment portfolio look like (e.g. stocks, bonds, cash, crypto, etc.)?

Would be interesting to see how different people are thinking about the transition from accumulation to actually leaving work.

I’ll start:

36yo, CHF 1.96M invested + CHF 236k across my 2nd and 3rd pillars. Goal: CHF 3M by 40/41. I don’t want to push FIRE too far out and risk getting older before I get to enjoy the freedom, or my body not being able to do what it can today.

My portfolio is 85%VT 10% in BTC and 5% cash (to be deployed soon). If this BTC cycle plays out well, I could potentially reach my target earlier.

The plan is to leave Switzerland for a third country and withdraw my 2nd and 3rd pillars in full. I’m not counting those in my FIRE number, so I’m treating them as a nice bonus/safety net rather than part of the plan.

I (36M) have around 11 years of experience in my field and 9 in the same company and currently work as a Senior Manager for a consulting company in Zurich. My role is essentially business strategy / project management, focused on helping the firm win client contracts.

My current compensation is:

- Base: CHF 122k

- Bonus: CHF 25–30k, depending on the year

- Total compensation: roughly CHF 147–152k

I feel that this is relatively low for a Senior Manager with my level of experience in Zurich. At the same time, there are significant advantages to the job that make the comparison less straightforward.

The job is extremely flexible and low-stress. I have a lot of autonomy over my time, work basically always from home, and my boss is based in another country and doesn't micromanage me at all (we speak maybe once/twice a week). There are days when I have very little to do as I became very efficient at my job, and I have a lot of freedom to manage my workload around that.

So while I don't feel particularly motivated by the compensation, the overall quality of life and flexibility are excellent which made me stay put so far.

For those with 10+ years of experience at Senior Manager level in Zurich, particularly in consulting/project management/business strategy, does CHF 147–150k total compensation sound about average, or is it on the low side?

I'm mainly interested in hearing what others with comparable experience and responsibilities are earning.

I currently have a very simple strategy when it comes to equities: one all-world ETF and that's it.

I’m wondering whether it actually makes sense to "complicate" this strategy for the following reasons.

I see a lot of people adding different ETFs to create tilts toward tech, quality, value, small caps, dividends, emerging markets, etc. I understand the idea: you believe a particular factor, sector or segment of the market will outperform and therefore give it a higher allocation than its weight in the global index.

But I’ve never fully understood the logic behind relatively small tilts. If you genuinely have strong conviction that, for example, tech or small caps will outperform over the next 20 years, why allocate only 10–20% to it? And if you don't have enough conviction to allocate substantially more, will a small tilt actually make a meaningful difference to the overall portfolio?

There is also the rebalancing problem.

If you have an all-world ETF plus several tilts, you now have to decide when and how to rebalance. What happens when one of your tilted funds significantly outperforms? Do you sell some of it to bring it back to target, or do you let it run because you now think your original thesis was correct? And if you let it run, at what point do you rebalance?

That introduces another layer of decision-making and, potentially, psychology. You can end up second-guessing your own allocation precisely when one of your bets is doing extremely well or extremely badly.

With an all-world ETF, you essentially let the market determine the weights and automatically rebalance as companies and sectors change. There is much less to decide.

So I’m wondering: is an all-world ETF genuinely enough for the equity portion of a long-term portfolio, or are there good reasons to introduce tilts despite the additional complexity and rebalancing decisions?

And does the answer change between the accumulation and decumulation phases?

During accumulation, is there a meaningful long-term advantage to adding factor/sector/small-cap tilts, or is the simplicity and discipline of an all-world ETF actually a major advantage?

And during decumulation, do additional ETFs become more useful because of sequence-of-returns risk, withdrawals, income requirements, valuations, etc.?

I’m not arguing that an all-world ETF is necessarily optimal. I’m genuinely trying to understand what problem the additional ETFs are solving, whether the expected benefit is meaningful, and whether it justifies the extra complexity and rebalancing decisions.

I wonder how many non-Swiss people living in Switzerland would actually choose to stay if salaries were on par with the rest of Europe — and, more importantly, if the saving potential were roughly the same as elsewhere in Europe.

I've discussed this with pretty much every non-Swiss person I know who lives here, and honestly, almost everyone seems to be here for the money. They came for the salaries and stayed because the ability to save is significantly higher than in most other European countries.

And the people I've known who eventually left Switzerland often did so after accumulating enough wealth that money was no longer the main consideration. They went back to their home countries, or moved somewhere else because they wanted a better social life, warmer weather, a different lifestyle, etc. They were still earning enough to live comfortably, so the lower salary abroad wasn't important anymore.

I actually think I'm in the same situation. I came to Switzerland primarily for the money, and I'm still here primarily because of the money. Financially, Switzerland works extremely well for me, but in terms of lifestyle, social life, weather, and overall enjoyment, it doesn't really offer what I'm looking for compared with other countries I've lived in.

If Swiss salaries were closer to the European average, or if the saving potential after taxes and living costs were similar to other European countries, I would not live here.

So I'm curious, particularly from other non-Swiss people:

If money were completely taken out of the equation, would you still choose to live in Switzerland? And if yes, what would be the main reasons?

I’m also part of the Bogleheads community, and I try to approach investing as objectively as possible. I don’t believe investing is a one-size-fits-all strategy, which is why I like reading different investing forums and understanding the reasoning behind different approaches.

One argument I see quite often here in the Dividend Investing community is that a dividend-focused strategy may have an advantage over a traditional Boglehead total-market approach during a prolonged bear market, particularly once someone is living off their portfolio.

The argument, as I understand it, is that if a dividend portfolio continues generating a relatively stable income during a prolonged downturn, the investor may be able to cover their expenses without selling shares while prices are depressed. With a total-return strategy, by contrast, someone withdrawing money during a major downturn may need to sell shares, potentially increasing sequence-of-returns risk.

I’d be interested in hearing how people here see this objectively.

Does dividend investing genuinely provide an advantage during a prolonged bear market for someone in the withdrawal phase, or is the difference mostly psychological/economic equivalence, since dividends are ultimately just another way of extracting value from the portfolio?

I’m genuinely looking for an honest discussion of the pros and cons of both approaches, rather than trying to argue that one strategy is universally better. If there are situations where the dividend approach has a real structural advantage, I’d be interested in understanding them. Likewise, I’d be interested in hearing the strongest arguments against it.

Hi all, looking for some advice.

I'm 36, living in Europe, and I got into the FIRE movement mostly because I wanted the peace of mind of knowing that, if something happens, I'll be financially fine.

I'm not necessarily at the point where I want to stop working right now. I still enjoy the work I do and the team I work with, so I could see myself continuing for the next couple of years. But by 40 at the latest, I could see myself getting tired of it, or potentially stopping earlier if circumstances change.

I've now reached a point where my invested capital/net worth is roughly 30x my annual expenses.

My portfolio is currently:

- 90% VT

- 10% Bitcoin — I've held this position for many years and it's highly profitable. I currently trim it when it deviates roughly 5% from my target allocation. As I get closer to FIRE, I'm very open to reducing it to 5% or even removing it entirely.

- Cash: I currently have around 12 months of expenses fully covered, but in reality I have almost 2.5 years of living expenses in cash, mainly because some of the cash came from a recent house sale.

I know 2.5 years of expenses in cash is probably more than I need, so I'm planning to invest the excess. I'm slowly DCAing into VT because, as everyone knows, there is always a reason to think the market is "too high," and waiting for the perfect entry point doesn't really make sense.

So my main question is: if you were in my position, would you keep the portfolio this simple and invest most/all of the excess cash into VT, or would you add something else?

I've considered gold, but I'm not convinced it adds much over the long term. Even allocating 10% to something like gold doesn't seem like it would materially change the overall outcome.

I've also considered real estate, but that's not really an option for me right now. I live in one of the most expensive housing markets in the world, where buying is extremely expensive and renting is significantly cheaper than many mortgages. I'm also moving/travelling quite a lot, so I don't want to tie myself to a property. Maybe once I FIRE and settle in a different country, I'll consider buying.

Given all of that, is there anything I'm missing? Would you change anything about this setup, particularly with FIRE potentially only a few years away?

Thanks!

I've been thinking about this for a while, and I'm genuinely curious to hear how other people see it.

I personally don't plan to have children, and one of the main reasons is that I find the decision to create a child inherently quite selfish.

The child doesn't choose to be born. We, as adults, make that decision for them. And when we decide to have a child, we also decide the circumstances into which they're going to be born: the country, economic situation, family environment, quality of life, education, stability, and so on.

But what is the motivation behind that decision? In many cases, isn't it ultimately about what we want? Companionship, love, a sense of purpose, the experience of being a parent, creating a family, leaving a legacy, or simply the biological desire to reproduce.

I've also seen situations where parents have children partly with the expectation that those children will support them later in life. Then, decades later, the child may feel obligated to move back home, sacrifice a career, relationship, or lifestyle, and spend years taking care of their aging parents.

That seems particularly strange to me because the child never agreed to that responsibility. They were brought into existence partly because the parents wanted something, and then they can end up carrying obligations that were effectively imposed on them from birth.

I understand the counterargument: parents can genuinely believe that they're giving their child a good life, and that the benefits of existence outweigh the risks and suffering that come with it. And obviously, many parents love their children deeply and make enormous sacrifices for them.

But I still struggle with the fundamental question:

If a person cannot consent to being born, and the decision to create them is ultimately made because the parents want something from parenthood, can having children ever really be considered an unselfish act?

I'm not saying that people who have children are bad people. I'm interested in whether the decision itself is inherently self-interested, and whether that necessarily makes it selfish in a morally problematic sense.

I'd be interested in hearing both sides, particularly from parents and people who deliberately chose not to have children.

What am I missing in this line of thinking?

Let me start, I came to Switzerland 12 years ago, pretty much randomly, because of a job offer. I had no particular interest in moving to Switzerland.

I’m 36 now, and looking back, the first year was fine. Everything was new and exciting, although I already felt quite early on that Switzerland probably wasn’t really for me. But I kept staying because of relationships, jobs, stability, and, eventually, life simply became very comfortable.

Now, at 36, I’m realizing more clearly that Switzerland doesn’t offer much of what I’m looking for in life. Lifestyle, weather, food, spontaneity, friendships, and relationships have become increasingly important to me.

I’m someone who enjoys spontaneity and warm, open social interactions. I like being able to meet people easily, have a coffee somewhere, start talking to someone, make plans spontaneously, and generally have a more flexible lifestyle. Switzerland can feel quite the opposite of that. A lot of life revolves around routines, planning and structure, and I’ve realized that this simply doesn’t suit me that well.

Career wise, I also feel that Switzerland is relatively limited depending on what you’re looking for. There are obviously great opportunities, but a lot of the market is concentrated around areas like banking, pharma, consulting and a few other major industries (not to mention language that makes it all more complex). For me personally, it hasn’t provided the kind of career flexibility and lifestyle I’m looking for.

I have absolutely no regrets about moving here. Switzerland has given me a lot, including financial stability and a very comfortable life. But I’ve reached a point where I’m asking myself whether comfort and money are enough if the overall lifestyle doesn’t really fit you.

If I could go back to my younger self, I would probably put more weight on lifestyle and the kind of environment I wanted to live in, rather than simply following the best financial opportunity.

So I think the time may have finally come to pull the plug and move somewhere that fits me better.

I’d be really interested to hear from others who moved to Switzerland, especially those who have been here for 5, 10, 15+ years. Are you happier here than before? Did Switzerland turn out to be what you expected? And if you left, or are thinking about leaving, what changed your mind?

I’m less interested in the usual “VT vs. VOO vs. VWCE / accumulation vs. distributing” discussion and more interested in the bigger picture: what are your financial goals, and how have those goals shaped your investment strategy?

For example, are you:

- Pursuing FIRE and trying to retire as early as possible?

- Building a portfolio specifically to generate income?

- Living in Switzerland and structuring your investments around Swiss taxes and costs?

- Trying to supplement your salary with investment income?

- Planning to move to another country and investing differently because of that?

- Using a combination of ETFs, individual stocks, real estate, bonds, crypto, or other instruments for a specific objective?

I’d be particularly interested in hearing why you chose your strategy, rather than just what you invest in.

What’s your end goal, what approach are you taking to get there, and what factors (taxation, country of residence, income needs, risk tolerance, time horizon, etc.) have influenced your decisions?

I’m hoping to hear from people with different objectives and approaches rather than another discussion about which global ETF is best.

I'm currently invested heavily in VT and I'm considering switching my core equity allocation to IOO.

I'm looking for long-term wealth accumulation (im 36yo), and I value simplicity.

The reason I'm considering IOO is that it gives exposure to the 100 largest global companies, rather than owning essentially the entire global market. It currently has a much higher concentration in large, established companies, particularly US mega-cap companies.

My thinking is:

- The largest companies tend to have strong profitability, global reach, pricing power and balance sheets.

- The global economy increasingly seems to be dominated by a relatively small number of mega-cap companies.

- VT owns thousands of companies, including many smaller companies that may never become meaningful contributors to returns.

- If the largest global companies continue to outperform, IOO should benefit disproportionately.

- I'm willing to accept more concentration risk in exchange for potentially higher returns.

- IOO has existed since 2000, so this isn't simply a brand-new thematic ETF.

- The main obvious disadvantage I see is cost: IOO charges 0.40% versus 0.06% for VT.

Also IOO rebalances gt market cap anyways like VT.

So, what am I missing?

Why should I not simply put my equity allocation into IOO instead of VT and leave it alone?

I'm particularly interested in arguments beyond the generic "VT is more diversified."

For example:

1. What specific scenario could cause IOO to materially underperform VT over the next 5–10 years?

2. Is the concentration in mega-cap companies actually a meaningful risk, or is it simply a different form of market-cap weighting?

3. Is there a fundamental reason to expect smaller companies or emerging markets to outperform large global companies going forward?

4. Does the annual fee difference materially change the long-term equation?

5. Is IOO effectively making a bet that the current global leaders will remain the global leaders?

6. If you had to choose one ETF today for the next 5–10-15 years, would you choose VT or IOO, and why?

I'm deliberately trying to challenge the IOO thesis rather than looking for confirmation bias.

Convince me that VT is the better choice.

I'm 36 and in a bit of a weird situation. I've spent most of my adult life working, progressing, earning, investing, travelling, having relationships, etc. I genuily had a great life so far. I have hobbies, good friends, a great family and a pretty good life, but I feel like I'm lacking a bigger purpose.

For a couple of years I've assumed that FIRE would solve this, that having complete freedom and my time back (though I manage pretty well with work) would allow me to figure out what I actually want from life.

But I'm starting to question that. I already have a decent amount of free time, so maybe my problem isn't lack of time, but simply not knowing what I want to use it for. I do some sports, go out with friends, have often had relationships, i travel a lot, but what else?

For those who actually FIRE'd: did it give you a greater sense of purpose and happiness, or did you find that you still had to figure that part out separately?

I'd especially love to hear real-life experiences rather than theory and how and what purpose did you find.

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.

​

I’ve been looking into buying an apartment in Lisbon and comparing it with simply continuing to invest the same money in broad equity ETFs.

Based on the calculations I’ve been doing, purely as an investment, Lisbon real estate doesn’t seem particularly compelling over the long term compared with diversified equities. It also introduces quite a lot of concentration risk, especially if a large portion of your net worth ends up in one property.

That said, I can see the appeal of owning a place for personal use as well. For example, I could live there when I’m in Lisbon, rent out a second bedroom when I’m away, and have a permanent base rather than constantly renting.

Has anyone here gone down this route and bought property in Lisbon? How do you feel about the decision in hindsight?

In particular, I’d be interested in hearing from people who:

Bought primarily as an investment but also use the property themselves

Compared the purchase with simply keeping the money invested in ETFs

Eventually regretted buying and wished they had stayed in equities

Had a positive experience and think the property was worth the opportunity cost

I’ve been investing in equity markets for over a decade, so I’m comfortable with ETFs, but I have zero experience with real estate. That makes me somewhat reluctant to put a significant amount of money into an asset class I don’t know well.

I’m not necessarily looking for the usual “property always goes up” vs. “stocks always outperform” debate. I’m more interested in people who have actually bought in Lisbon and can share what they learned about the financial side, maintenance, taxes, rental income, liquidity, and the lifestyle benefits/costs of owning.

I’m exploring the idea rather than having made a decision yet.

Hi all,

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Around 10% of my portfolio is currently sitting in cash after a house sale. While 10% may not sound like much, it represents roughly four years of living expenses for me, so it's a significant amount.

I'm struggling with what to do next.

On one hand, I'm hesitant to invest it all into the market because we're near all time highs. On the other hand, keeping it in a high-yield savings account or a money market fund means I'm effectively waiting for a better entry point, which feels a bit like market timing.

Another option I've considered is putting it into dividend ETFs as they are a bit more resilient to possible market drops (if the happen i can then sell into my Core growth etf, if they dont i let then ride in those dividend growth etfs).

Their yields are around 3% or higher, which is similar to what money market funds currently offer, but with the added potential for dividend growth and capital appreciation over the long term.

My current portfolio is:

\- 90% VT

\- 10% Bitcoin

So if you were in my position, would you:

\- Invest the cash into VT now?

\- Keep it in a money market fund until better opportunities arise (but that means market tining)?

\- Park it in dividend ETFs like SCHD or VYMI as a middle ground?

\- Do something else entirely?

I'm interested in hearing how you would approach this and why.

Hi all,

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Around 10% of my portfolio is currently sitting in cash after a house sale. While 10% may not sound like much, it represents roughly four years of living expenses for me, so it's a significant amount.

I'm struggling with what to do next.

On one hand, I'm hesitant to invest it all into the market because we're near all time highs. On the other hand, keeping it in a high-yield savings account or a money market fund means I'm effectively waiting for a better entry point, which feels a bit like market timing.

Another option I've considered is putting it into dividend ETFs as they are a bit more resilient to possible market drops (if the happen i can then sell into my Core growth etf, if they dont i let then ride in those dividend growth etfs).

Their yields are around 3% or higher, which is similar to what money market funds currently offer, but with the added potential for dividend growth and capital appreciation over the long term.

My current portfolio is:

\- 90% VT

\- 10% Bitcoin

So if you were in my position, would you:

\- Invest the cash into VT now?

\- Keep it in a money market fund until better opportunities arise (but that means market tining)?

\- Park it in dividend ETFs like SCHD or VYMI as a middle ground?

\- Do something else entirely?

I'm interested in hearing how you would approach this and why.

If so can you share your investment setup, withdrawal strategy, tax setup and age?

What the title says, curious to know if you keep your savings in eur/chf/usd in interest bearing accounts (like on a brokerage) with the intention of investing them and DCA in the market

What do you do now? Can you descrive your transition? I'm sick and tired of the corporate politics and want to live this soul sucking space and looking for inspirartion