r/EuropeFIRE

I’m approaching FIRE but living in Western Europe where costs keep rising. I’m concerned my current portfolio won’t safely last 30 years here realistically. I’m considering moving to more affordable European countries, but I’m not sure where my money would actually stretch.

And to be able to make a move like this, I’m guessing I’d need to be sure of what the cost of living looks like wherever I choose next. Are there people here with real experiences doing this?

When I read posts here (I mean not US related where everything is bigger like … paycheck, but also expenses) about FIRE targets, they’re often around €1.5–2M, and I honestly don’t get why the number is so high.

For example, I checked my actual spending from last year and it was about €1.9k per month. That includes everything — 3 weeks in Thailand, 10 days in Sicily, mortgage payments for my flat here in main Polish city, going out sometimes, etc. I’m naturally a bit frugal, but still.
I’m not counting invested money here.

Using a 3.5% SWR, around €650k should be enough for me to retire. Let’s even add another €100k for big one-off expenses like a new car or home renovation (and I’d probably still work a bit anyway).

I get that places like the Netherlands are more expensive, but for most European countries the difference shouldn’t be that big.

To clarify: I’m assuming these target numbers are per person and don’t include a primary residence.

So am I missing something? Am I being naive? Or are people just overshooting their targets / including their home in the number?

33f here, no inheritance, just investing since ~10 years.

Has anyone fired with 500k€ somewhere in Europe? I'm from Germany and fearing the taxes on my yields. Been thinking a lot about moving away from Germany when hitting my FIRE number.

With this next milestone, thoughts get more intense to opt out from Germany.

Most of my networth is invested in ETF (most of them under 100k, because of Wegzugbesteuerung), little bit of krypto and little bit of a cash position.

Just hope that I will hit 1mio soon...

Hello , i would appreciate an articulated opinion.

I work as an engineer in Belgium and have saved up some money , around 30k now. And i have invested another 20k into gold and stocks.

I had my eyes on an apartment which i would have used the cash for as a down payment but now its gone and i abandoned the idea of buying one for now and the 30k are just sitting in the bank .

The question is what do you think i should do with the money in the meantime . Bank interest rates are low not worth the moving and i was thinking into putting them all into etfs. If i go that way would you say its better to buy the etf all at once or 1000 every month or what scheme would you recommend.

I’m 36, originally from Italy, currently living in Switzerland, with around EUR1.6M invested (85% VT, 15% BTC) and yearly expenses of roughly 50k. No capital gains tax where I live.

I discovered FIRE a couple of years ago, which changed how I think about time and freedom.

My job is objectively very good: \~Eur150k income, flexible, low stress, maybe 3–4 hours of real work per day. The issue is not the setup — it’s motivation. I’m no longer excited by it and have become less career-oriented over the last years. My focus has shifted toward relationships, lifestyle, and purpose outside work.

I’m in a long-term relationship with a Brazilian partner. We’ve already lived together for almost 8 months due to my job’s remote flexibility. That flexibility is now ending. Our main plan A is Southern Europe, with Latin America also a strong option depending on how things evolve.

Financially, the core FIRE math seems fine (\~3.4% withdrawal rate). I also have 18 months of unemployment coverage at \~70% salary, so I’m not holding much cash. On top of that, I’ll soon receive \~eur230k from selling a house, which I still need to allocate.

Where I’m stuck is not the math, but structure and optionality.

I see three layers:

\- Long-term portfolio (VT-heavy, small BTC) → long-term independence

\- Safety net (unemployment insurance) → strong protection while employed

\- Missing piece: transition / optionality buffer

That last part feels under-structured given I may stop working or relocate within 12–24 months.

Trade-offs:

\- Switzerland: financially optimal, but feels like a “golden cage” and not where I want to build long-term

\- Southern Europe: better lifestyle fit, but much lower income, possibly close to my withdrawal rate which makes me doubt working at all at that point.

\- Latin America: \~30–40% lower expenses and often better lifestyle fit, but a major life transition

\- Language is not a barrier (Spanish/Portuguese/italian/english)

I also wonder if I’m missing something in my portfolio structure itself. I mainly hold US-domiciled ETFs (like VT) because they are tax-efficient and convenient in Switzerland, but I’m not sure if I’m overlooking better structuring or risk considerations given my situation and possible relocation.

The question is not only about investing, but:

How would you structure liquidity, portfolio allocation, and optionality when you might realistically stop working or relocate within 12–24 months without locking yourself into irreversible decisions?

Would appreciate perspectives from people who’ve been through similar FIRE + relocation + relationship transitions.

I want to sharing our situation.

I don’t think I can hit the RE in FIRE, and in position I can’t/don’t want to do extreme frugality.

Me and my wife (both 45) with 5- and 14-years kids. Living in Austria, so education and health cost is not the headache in general.

Family income net €6500/month, wife works part time. Salary structured to get 14x/year, so consider the bonus €13k/year.

Emergency fund 6 months expenses. Mortgage+insurance+utilities=€1450. Mortgage will be over in 4 years, mortgage budget afterwards will be used for bigger kid if she goes living in another city as university student. If not, half of it for her and half is for maintenance cost for housing(build in 2017, after 25 years you will need some bigger cost)

Car tax+insurance 110, diesel 90. All other insurances (private health for small kid, term life insurance for me and wife, travel insurance) 180.

Kids expenses 800(next September no need to pay kindergarten, minus 300).

Grocery 800, eating out 400.

Holiday saving 1000. Holiday is relatively expensive for family of four, 1 week holiday in aparthotel plus entertainment cost easily 3k without plane cost. If you fly it will add 2k easily. It is all holiday within EU.

Investment 1600, Bonus will be used to buy 1 ounce gold per year and the rest will be in investment.

Investment stock+ETF €190k, bonds €28k, gold €40k (per 15 May 2026).

In short, living cost €4830/ month, annual cost 58k.

Both of us working in automotive industry and the business is getting worse over time, more things transferred to Asia or eastern Europe. Germany just made the forecast that automotive industry will lose 225k job until 2035, and you can see every few months there are big companies close down the factories or slowly transfer things out. Company don’t want to hire anyone with 10+ years experience because of the cost. It will be getting tougher because we compete with everyone from EU.

Changing job is complicated, in the meaning of difficult to change industry, I am not EU citizens,  and so on.

How do you guys planning for FI if you are thinking of losing the job or how to do the estimation? I feel we don’t spend a lot of money (skipping holiday is must if I lost job ofc) and to do more frugality will be stressful.

Since the question of which brokers offer access to US exchanges such as NASDAQ and the NYSE comes up quite often, I wanted to put together a more focused comparison of popular European brokers, including some of the most commonly used ones in Germany.

The main distinction is between brokers with direct access to US exchanges like NYSE/NASDAQ and brokers where US stocks are mainly traded through European venues such as Gettex or Lang & Schwarz.

I’ve listed the brokers below:

Interactive Brokers

• Direct access to NYSE/NASDAQ: Yes
• US trading fees: Tiered: from 0,0035$/share (min. 0,35$) + exchange/regulatory fees, Fixed: 0,005$/share (min. 1$)
• Tax handling: No

SMARTBROKER+

• Direct access to NYSE/NASDAQ: Yes
• US trading fees: 4€ + 0,02% (min. 8$)
• Tax handling: Germany only

Trading212

• Direct access to NYSE/NASDAQ: Partial / Orders routed via IBKR infrastructure
• US trading fees: 0,15% FX fee
• Tax handling: Germany only

Degiro

• Direct access to NYSE/NASDAQ: Yes
• US trading fees: 1€ + 1€ handling fee + 0,25% FX
• Tax handling: No

Flatex

• Direct access to NYSE/NASDAQ: Yes
• US trading fees: 5,90€ + exchange fees
• Tax handling: Germany & Austria

ING

• Direct access to NYSE/NASDAQ: Yes
• US trading fees: 4,90€ + 0,25% + 14,90€
• Tax handling: Germany and partly Belgium

Trade Republic

• Direct access to NYSE/NASDAQ: No
• US trading fees: Not available
• Tax handling: Germany, Austria, Spain and partly France/Italy

Scalable Capital

• Direct access to NYSE/NASDAQ: No
• US trading fees: Not available
• Tax handling: Germany only

I hope this helps! It would be interesting to hear what everyone here uses and whether you prefer true US market access.

Throwaway for obvious reasons.

I’m 25 and I’ve never really had a normal career. Somehow, through a mix of luck, timing and weird online work, I’ve ended up with roughly £400k saved.

Most of it came from dodgy/self-employed internet stuff, crypto, and random online hustles. For a few years I sold cheats for a popular video game and made surprisingly good money from it. I also sold in-game gold/items for various games. A lot of the payments were in crypto and I never cashed most of it out early, which massively boosted what I ended up with.

Before all that, I mainly did cash in hand work with my uncle window cleaning, pressure washing, gutter cleaning, bits of manual labour, that sort of thing. Decent money at the time, but obviously nowhere near what happened later online.

The problem is that now I’m 25 with savings, but basically no real career or direction.

My “skills” are all over the place. I can probably code at an alright level now, but it’s all self-taught and informal. No degree, no industry experience, no proper frameworks, nothing employers would care about. I’m not even sure I enjoy programming enough to make it my life.

I could probably go back into manual labour or landscaping since I’m fit enough, but it doesn’t feel like it leads anywhere long term.

I genuinely want to sort my life out and do something meaningful, but I feel weirdly unemployable despite being financially ahead of most people my age. I’ve got basically no pension, no proper CV, and the last 6 years of my life are impossible to explain without sounding dodgy.

Feels stupid complaining when I know I’m lucky financially, but honestly having £400k with no career, no structure and no real-world experience feels a lot less secure than people think.

For those a bit further along in their FIRE journey, did you end up changing platforms as your portfolio grew, or just stick with your original setup? I started fairly simple and didn’t think too much about it at the time, but now that I’m planning longer term, I’m wondering if that’s something people typically revisit.

Not so much about chasing the absolute lowest fees, but more whether your initial setup still made sense once things scaled up. Feels like something that doesn’t matter early on, but might later, just not sure when that shift usually happens.

I guess US account might have regulatory benefits, but I don't know how transferable they are.

What do you guys think/know about it?

Hi everyone,

Some friends from the US recently visited me, and they were telling me about the different credit cards people use there: like Chase, Amex, Marriott, etc. They use these cards for everyday spending, earn points, and then redeem those points for flights and hotel stays.
I was wondering if there are similar credit cards or rewards programs available in Europe as well as I would be very interested? If yes, which ones are considered the best or most popular?

Been doing this for about a year and figured I'd share since I haven't seen anyone else do it quite this way.
Every month I check my net worth, take 4% of it, divide by 12. That's my entertainment budget for the month: dinners out, drinks, gifts, movies, anything fun. If I overspend, next month's budget shrinks by the overshoot. If I underspend, it banks. The balance just keeps rolling.
The 4% is the FIRE safe withdrawal rate. Felt like a reasonable cap on fun money, if I'm comfortable drawing 4% forever in retirement, I'm probably not eating my future by spending the same on having fun now.
What I didn't expect was how different this feels from a normal budget that reset every month, so overspending has no real consequence, you just promise to do better in April. With the rolling balance, if I go nuts in March, April starts red. I have no fun budget that month. The discipline shows up where it actually matters, which is before I tap my card.

A few things I've noticed:

• It actually changes behavior at the point of decision. I check the current balance before buying drinks, not after.
• Net worth dropping (bad market) shrinks my fun budget. Feels right. Most budgets pretend market crashes don't exist.
• Categorization is fuzzy and that's fine. Is buying flowers "entertainment"? idk. I pick one and move on. The rule survives a little drift because it cares about totals.
• What counts as net worth is a real decision. I don't include my pension (can't actually spend it).
• I include cash, brokerage, crypto, debts. The "available for fun" net worth is smaller than total wealth, by design.

I've been running this in a spreadsheet and it works but the friction is real, I have to remember to carry the balance forward each month, I've messed it up a few times, categorization drifts. I'm a developer so I built an iOS app around it. Not pitching it here, just being honest about where this is going. Mention it because I could use some beta testers who are good with money.
Anyone else do something like this? Curious how people structure their discretionary spending rules. The 4% feels conservative to me but I've stuck with it because going higher feels like cheating.

We are planning a potential move from the US to home country Ireland after 15 years abroad. Trying to think through the cleanest/lowest-cost way to convert and transfer funds.

Approximate needs: (we are also US citizens and will continue to be)

- One-time transfer/conversion: around $2.5M USD → EUR, likely for housing / relocation.

- Ongoing annual spending: around $250k/year USD equivalent.

From my research so far:

For the large transfer, consider Interactive Brokers for USD→EUR conversion because the FX spread/commission seems much better.

Plan to also ask a private bank / brokerage FX desk for an all-in quote and compare the rate against mid-market. Anyone done this before?

For annual spending, maybe keep 6–12 months of EUR expenses in an Irish bank and replenish quarterly/semiannually via IBKR or Wise seems the best way.

For those who have done a large USD→EUR move:

- What worked best in practice for large and ongoing small transfers — IBKR, Wise, private bank FX desk, or something else?

- Any issues with IBKR compliance/freezes when converting and withdrawing large amounts? How long do I need to have the account and how much should I keep there before I convert?

- What would you do differently?

Been in power electronics for several years across different countries and companies. Watched a lot of smart engineers get blindsided by things that had nothing to do with their technical skills.

The ones that hit hardest in my experience:

- Your boss's perception of you matters more than your actual output. Unfair but true.

- Company loyalty means nothing. One restructuring email erases 20 years.

- Silent performers always get sidelined — no matter how good the work is.

- High fixed costs (mortgage, car payments) become career prison. You can't leave even when you should.

- Career decay is slow and invisible. Junior engineers quietly take over your work before you notice.

Anyone else experienced these?

Curious which ones hit hardest for people here.

Can someone please recommend me a tax consultant for helping with my tax filing in Belgium.

I am an expat who came newly in Belgium in 2025, so I have salary(before coming to Belgium) from my previous country of work in 2025, as well as some investment income and property(without income) in my home country.

Hope to find a tax consultant who is not very expensive.

I already contacted someone after googling, but their quote seemed expensive for me(all of them more than 500 €).

Thank you !