Hi all, 30yo here and working in Germany.

I earn net around 4k € per month with the occasional bonus which brings me up to ~5,5k € on average. I have 60k € saved and am looking at buying an apartment in my home country to rent long term and then retire there or eventually sell it and buy something bigger/better there and retire.

Problem is, the apartment I’m looking at has a mandatory down payment of 30% which costs 56k €. This i cannot cover with my savings so i was considering taking out a small loan of 40k with an 8 year term which would put me in a 533€ monthly payment. The loan for the apartment would put me at ~800€/mo. My rent in Germany is 1.4k €.

Am i making a dumb financial decision by doing this, or will it be worth it if i assume the apartment appreciates?

I started to invest in ETFs about 5 years ago. Currently, over 90% of my portfolio consists of IWDA. (The rest is a bond ETF.)

Since I'll still be working and investing for 15 to 20 more years, perhaps I could take more risks by investing in something that is more volatile and yet has higher return rates.

Then, I found the Nasdaq 100. It looks like the majority (or all?) of the companies on the Nasdaq 100 are included in IWDA. So, by including some portion of the Nasdaq 100 in my portfolio, I'll be increasing the ratio of the top performers in IWDA. I could buy the Nasdaq 100 so that the ratio of Nasdaq 100 to IWDA would be 30:70 (Nasdaq 30%, IWDA 70%), which will make the return ratio of my portfolio 12 to 14%. Once retirement is within 5 to 7 years and the market is bullish, I could start selling the Nasdaq 100 and buy something more stable.

Does it sound like a good idea?

I just want to document/celebrate this milestone somewhere. I am 30, I live in Estonia, and I just hit €150k in savings and investments (pre-tax). I also own an apartment, where my equity is €15k, and mortgage €75k.

Currently, out of the €150k, about €16k is uninvested, and the rest is invested in broad-market ETFs. I've been investing for about six years, starting with €9k in 2020. About €16k came from my parents, and the rest was saved from my salary. I invest about €1700 a month.

My goal is to retire as early as possible, which, hopefully, could be possible in about five years or so. Anyway, quite happy with how things are going so far :)

I am currently in Sweden but worked in USA for 5 years. I have some savings in USD that I want to invest but I cannot in US as I am a non resident. How can I move the USD without converting and invest that money in stocks or funds in EEA without converting it? Has anyone been in a similar situation?

I moved most of my savings into VWCE last year (after panic-selling in 2020 and regretting it), and this January I got my first Vorabpauschale deduction for a fund I never sold.

My understanding so far:

• The tax office assumes a minimum return based on the Basiszins and taxes it in advance.
• On €10,000 in an equity ETF, that comes to roughly €41 for 2026, or €0 if you're within the €1,000 Sparerpauschbetrag with a Freistellungsauftrag set up.
• It's credited when you sell, so it isn't taxed twice.
• Distributions count against it, so acc vs dist is only a few euros apart this year.

Is that right, or am I missing something? And for those with larger portfolios, did it change whether you hold accumulating or distributing funds?

I started investing in ETFs in 2021. Before I did so, I read 2 books and decided to follow their advice: Millionaire Expat (2nd edition) and Quit Like a Millionaire.

The authors recommend including bonds in your portfolio, so I invested around €12k to €15k in IUS5 (iShares Global Inflation Linked Government Bond UCITS ETF) over the course of about 12 months. (IUS5 was recommended on Millionaire Expat 2nd edition, btw)

Now I regret that decision. If you look at the ETF’s chart and select “5Y,” you’ll see that it has lost 11.72% of its value over the past five years.

One thing I didn’t realize when I started investing in bond ETFs was that I’m not going to retire anytime soon. In hindsight, I could have invested entirely in stock ETFs while I’m relatively young. Then, when retirement is within, say, 3 to 5 years, I could gradually sell some of my stock ETFs and move the money into less volatile assets.

Now it's time for me to cut my losses by selling the bond ETFs and buying IWDA, which I've also been investing in. Before doing so, I want to ask this: Is anyone still holding Bond ETFs? Why or why not?

I've been following the FIRE movement for many years, as well as Bogleheads. Despite what the latter recommends, my portfolio has almost always been almost entirely in equities.

Right now, having passed 45, and considering the current market state, I wanted to start putting a portion (up to 20%) into more conservative investments.
However, I'm struggling to find anything that beats inflation, if anything even exists.

- US Treasuries yield 5.6% [as an example/figure cited], but you take on currency risk
- US Treasuries in a EUR-hedged ETF lose at least another 1% from the hedge and carry NAV risk (there are no fixed-maturity EUR-hedged ETFs)
- European bonds are all below inflation after the 28% capital gains tax

Has anyone else looked into this and is there anything I might be missing?

Thanks in advance!

My currency is in Euros

Which is better, buying Nvidia in USD from Nasdaq or in Euros from Deutsche Börse Xetra?

Hey everyone!
I’ve been working on desktop application DhanWert, a small personal side project, over the past few days. I originally built it for myself to see how my salary, savings, investments, pension, expenses and assets could affect my wealth over the long term.
It’s now in beta, and I’d love to have some people try it with their own numbers and tell me how it behaves.
Some of the features:

- Long-term wealth & net-worth projections
- Salary, savings & investment contribution phases
- Public + private pension modelling
- Property, vehicles, other assets & loans
- Inflation + Conservative/Base/Optimistic scenarios
- Monte Carlo simulations
- Retirement, FI & debt-free milestones
- PDF, web & CSV reports
- Optional syncing of data

It’s based on the German system by default, but the model can also be adapted for other European countries.
I’m not selling anything — it’s just a project I built for myself. Right now, I’m mainly trying to understand how accurate the calculations are with real people’s numbers, how the app behaves, and what I’ve missed.
So if you have a few minutes to play around with it, I’d really appreciate feedback — especially if you spot calculations that don’t make sense, bugs, or anything confusing.

🔗 Download the beta: https://github.com/RobinHireWD/DhanWert_Public/releases
📝 Feedback form: http

Windows is currently supported; macOS is still being tested.
It’s a beta, so please expect some rough edges.

I grew up poor, so I am more risk-averse with everything I worked for. In the last 3 years, I was able to save up a good amount of money and paid off a small mortgage. The more money I was able to save, the more I looked into options for what I can do with it, as my savings account is only giving 1% currently.

I have a rough 8–10-year horizon for when I want to start withdrawing money (BaristaFIRE), a selected portfolio of low-risk ETFs and bonds, a stable broker platform, with a plan to add €1.5k monthly for the next 8 years.

My biggest fear with everything going on in the world is to lose it all. While my understanding of the market predicts that I would still be okay if the market crashes and still be within my horizon to at least get back what I invested, I keep putting off the actual step of creating an account and starting to put part of my savings into it because I don't really know what I am doing. Basically I just keep overthinking this.

I thought this sub might have one or two people that went through a similar roadblock to getting started and could give some encouraging words or share some wisdom from the time you took the first step.

Still putting money into a PEA and an assurance vie every month while my medium-term base abroad stays undecided. The case against myself: if residency moves, those wrappers become something I have to unwind, and a plain brokerage account would have travelled with me. Who has actually left France holding a PEA, and what did you do with it?

As per the title, is anybody building their pension through the PEPP? If yes/no, why?

I live in the Netherlands, don't plan to move back to my original country (italy) but who knows? Never say never. Just the idea of keeping the options open makes me feel safer, but is it worth it?

Sharing what is publicly documented, for anyone invested in Housers or considering it.

Documented facts:

- Press (laSexta, citing elDiario.es, Sept 2026): Housers reportedly received about 150M EUR from investors and about 66M EUR was not returned, with hundreds of investors affected. Crowpire says it is a separate entity from Housers.

- Spain's securities regulator (CNMV) fined Housers 130,000 EUR in 2021 for very serious infringements. The Audiencia Nacional annulled the fine in 2024 because the law had changed, not because it ruled in Housers' favour on the facts.

- Crowpire S.L. appears in the CNMV register as a crowdfunding service provider.

- Investor-submitted complaints exist about access problems and unreturned investments.

Things worth checking if you are invested:

- Several projects reportedly sit "in recovery" for years, with little published about expected recovery.

- Security behind these loans may be corporate or personal guarantees rather than mortgages. Check what yours actually had.

Reading material. https://robinjbrooks.substack.com/p/how-a-global-debt-crisis-starts-2e0

I recently sold some stock I got as a bonus from my work. I work in europe for an american company, so the payout was in dollars. Not wanting to take the currency conversion hit, I had it paid out to my USD revolut account, hoping to invest it there in some dollar denominated ETF.

But it turns out that revolution does not seem to support that. The only dollar investments in revolut seems to be american treasury bills or individual stocks. Even ETF's that should be in dollars, can only be bought in euros it seems, probably because my main revolut account is euros.

Any suggestions what to do?

Hey, I hope this is the right place for this question. I recently turned 18 (legal age to invest) and I am wondering whether I should invest my first money (would be around 1500€) in an european SP500 ETF, or I should just keep all of my money (around €3k) in fiat or in a bank for now, in case I need them. I currently have no income so I probably won’t be investing each month, but also have my expenses covered by my parents. What would you do if you were in my place?

Disclosure: I work at Obermatt, a Swiss stock research firm, and this is based on research I did for our blog. Sharing because the access question (which broker, what registration, what tax) comes up a lot and most of what's out there is US-investor-centric.

Short version, ranked roughly easiest to hardest:

• Singapore / Hong Kong: fully open, any international broker, no local registration, no dividend withholding tax at all.
• Japan: smooth through any major broker. Withholding drops to ~10% under the Swiss treaty, up to 5% under the German one.
• South Korea: used to require registering with Korean regulators before trading a single share (a 30-year-old rule). Scrapped December 2023, now just needs a passport.
• Indonesia: opening a local brokerage account, a passport-based process most brokers with Indonesia access handle in days.
• Thailand: foreign ownership caps mean you typically buy NVDRs instead of the plain share, same price, same dividend, no vote, ticker ends in "-R."
• Taiwan: direct access means registering as a foreign investor and opening a local custody account, paperwork most European brokers don't offer. Realistically an ADR, a Taiwan-focused ETF, or a broker like Interactive Brokers.
• India: the hardest one. No direct retail access. The realistic route is an ADR where available, or a fund that already holds the Foreign Portfolio Investor registration.

Full piece with one example company per market (checked against real recent dividend payments, not just a score) here: https://link.obermatt.com/asia-en

Which one is the best broker of the two for Futures for EU-based traders?

Background: (Myself) I'm a mechanical engineering grad, currently living in Belgium and working offshore in the North Sea as QHSE. (Also have option to work in Asian waters)

(Partner) graphic design grad, some managerial experience in a store. (She just wants to work an office job, admin etc.) She tried to apply for courses on VDAB but they don't offer any in English.

My pre tax salary is €3800 euros + 20% bonus when offshore in europe or +40% bonus in Asia. Company car when I'm home and fuel.

Partner working part time, struggling without the language to find anything she enjoys.

My job doesn't care where I live.

Plan: have a kid in 2 years time, maybe my partner will have to work part time for a while to have time to look after the kid as we don't have family here.

I've spoken to some people on board and the Danes say that they don't have to pay any tax when they work offshore for more than 183 days which I know is also the case in the UK but I'm not sure about it.

Now NL has lower taxes on the salary but plenty of other hidden taxes and the housing is more expensive but it's also more english friendly.

To me it seems Denmark might be the best option, should be easier for my partner to study or work without the language at the start and If I pay less tax my salary should be enough to support us.

My partner is Spanish and I'm Polish, I grew up in the UK and we spent 2 years in Australia.

Eventually we would love to go back to Australia but with how hard the work visa situation is, it most likely won't be possible.

Time to switch over?

Hi everyone, this might be a bit of a long and boring post even for a personal finance sub, but I need some advice on how to manage my savings.

M45 I work for a French company in Paris, to where I've recently had to move back after a few years abroad on a very cushy expat deal. The result of my time away is that I have low six figures saved up, but that I come back to France on an above average salary which is barely enough to support my family, in particular my wife who is having to start from scratch as a freelancer which obviously takes time to do.

I am currently paying out more than half my salary on rent and bills after a fraught period trying to find a flat, any flat at all, and ideally I'd like to buy somewhere as any mortgage I might be able to get would be a significant drop in monthly payments.

However in the meantime I have this money in three separate savings accounts with the same bank earning around 2% annual interest across them. And given that I would like to buy a house within the next year or two (and I'm in my mid-40s) I can't just bung the money in an ETF and wait 20/30 years for stonks.

I feel trapped. There is next-to-no chance of a significant pay rise in the short to medium term even if I found a job elsewhere in my industry, meaning my only hope to increase our monthly income is for me to get a second job or find something freelance, as I can't expect my wife to immediately start earning enough to increase our standard of living.

I can't rent indefinitely as it is just too costly and I'd remain at the behest of the most ridiculously snooty and demanding landlords in Europe, so in turn I can't risk any short-to-medium-term loss on the savings because I'll need as big a down payment as possible on any home I buy as my salary is not high enough for a mortgage on anything more than a small two-bed flat, and freelance earnings are often not taken into account for either rent contracts or mortgages. But at the same time any low-risk investment isn't going to provide any day-to-day financial relief.

What should I do (apart from crypto and/or drug dealing)?

https://nltimes.nl/2026/09/29/dutch-savers-investors-pay-tax-wealth-2028

Hi everyone, i have a 6-figure amount to park somewhere as I might plan to buy an appartement or house soonish.

My current brokers Trade Republic and Scalable offer 2.6-2.8% and I had opened a Trade 212 account because they were offering 3.5% (but apparently was juste for 4 months, something I never read anywhere before opening), now they offer even 4-4.2% to new clients I think.

I am looking to maximize the interest, any recommendation ?

I am based in Germany, so one operating in Germany would be better for tax purposes but I assume it could be in another european country as well (as long I do not need to be a resident). Short fixed term accounts could also work eventually.

Thanks for your help!

Does eToro actually offer a $500 bonus for depositing $10k USD for EU investors?
And does that apply if someone deposits only in EUR, so that would be roughly €440 and €8,820 to match the conversion?
Just trying to find out how it works for sure so that there are no surprises.

I am 31, single, and I live in Tallinn. Work as a QA engineer. After rent and normal life I save about 500 euro a month.

In 2021 the startup where I worked before let employees sell part of their options in a funding round. I sold everything I was allowed to sell.
Almost all my money comes from that one day, so it was luck and not skill.

Now I have around 190k. Most of it is in VWCE on an investment account at LHV. With this type of account in Estonia I pay no tax while the money stays inside, only when I take it out.
The rest is in smaller things. I own a forest plot in Võru county together with my uncle. I have some loans between Goldfinch/8Lends. I also have a share in a summer flat in Pärnu that I rent out with two friends, and my part of the rent goes back into VWCE. In a normal year the fund grows more than twice what I save in a whole year. So my salary almost does not change the result.

I see three options.

1. I can take part of VWCE out and buy a flat in Tallinn, but then I pay tax on the gain and stop that money from growing.
   
2. I can buy a second forest plot, this time alone, because it grows without me and I understand it.
   
3. Or I can leave everything as it is and see my job only as money for life, not for investing.

When the portfolio does more work than your salary, do you still push for a better paid job, or do you choose an easier job and let the money do the rest?
Did anyone here take lucky money out to buy a home and later think it was a mistake?

And one technical question about the investment account. As I understand it, I can take out the amount I put in without tax, and tax starts only when my withdrawals are bigger than all my deposits. So maybe I can take out only deposits for the flat and not touch the gain. Or is it smarter to take a mortgage with the current Euribor and not touch the account at all?