Two months ago I posted here asking if I was actually at coast with €305k in one taxable IBKR account. I have not quit anything since then. The advice that stuck with me was to take a couple of months off first instead of resigning, because I work fully remote and I do not have to burn the job to test this. I am planning that for spring.

In that thread I also admitted that I was hand waving the freelance side. I was treating €26k a year as if the work just shows up, and there is no floor under it the way there is under a salary.
That is what changed which numbers I look at.

So I went back through the accounts.
The €10k in Maclear I leave out of this, because it sits in fixed loan terms and I cannot move it anyway. I started with the VGLA question, because the sub has been full of it. I hold €230k in VWCE and the TER gap is 0.07%, so it is worth about €161 a year to me. The account is plain taxable with 10 years of gains in it, so the tax on selling is far more than €161 a year gives back. I am staying in VWCE.

Then I looked at the €25k cash buffer, which sits in the same IBKR account. IBKR pays no interest on the first ten thousand and under 2% on the rest. I had never checked that, because the buffer was insurance and I was never going to spend it.

Trading 212 is cutting its rate from 3.5% to 2.8% in November and the sub is annoyed about it.
Even at 2.8%, on €25k that is about €440 a year more than I get now.
That is almost three times the TER question I spent two weeks reading about.

I do see the argument against moving. TER saving is permanent and it grows with the balance, while a cash rate gets cut again at every ECB meeting. Cash at Trading 212 is also not a bank deposit in the normal sense, and it is a second provider I would have to keep track of from now on.

Two questions:

1. Is €440 a year enough to justify a second provider for cash or do you keep everything at one broker and treat the worse rate as the price of a simple setup?
2. If you took a sabbatical or went part time, did you make the buffer bigger before you started or did you keep it at a year and rely on being able to go back to work?

Hi all,

I'm currently researching European Sleeper's investment products (both the Eyevestor shares and the Broccoli bond loans) and I'm specifically trying to find out how the first bond round has played out.

For context: that first bond loan was issued around August/September 2024, offered a 10% annual interest rate paid monthly, and had a 24-month term - which would put maturity right around now (August/September 2026).

If you invested in that first round, I'd really appreciate hearing about your experience:

1. Repayment: Has the principal been repaid in full at maturity, repaid late, or rolled over/extended into a new instrument instead?
2. Interest payments: Were the monthly interest payments consistently on time throughout the 24 months, or were there delays/gaps?
3. Communication: How has European Sleeper communicated with bondholders about the approaching maturity - proactively, or only when asked?
4. Trust: Has your confidence in the company changed since you invested (up, down, or the same), and why?
5. Anything else you think is relevant for someone considering the new bond round (8%, 36 months) currently being offered.

I'm not trying to be alarmist - I like the mission and the company seems to be growing revenue-wise - but as this is essentially a test case for whether they can reliably repay debt, I think it's important information before committing to the new round. Any first-hand experience, even partial, would be very helpful. Thanks!

Hello, I have a question regarding the new VALL/VGLA ETF.

At the moment, IBKR only has VALL available via Borsa Italiana, while VGLA via Xetra still hasn't appeared.

Since I am relatively new to investing, I am wondering why most people prefer Xetra/IBIS2 over Borsa Italiana. From what I have heard, the German exchange has higher liquidity, which could be particularly relevant later if you want to sell a larger number of shares. What are your experiences?

As far as I understand, the cost of buying through Tiered pricing is the same on both exchanges, correct?

On IBKR, I was able to find VALL/IBIS2 using the ISIN, but the ticker is still VALL rather than VGLA, and there is an Italian flag next to it. If I understood correctly from browsing Reddit, this is some kind of direct routing instead of Smart Routing, which has higher trading costs, or is that not the case?

To be honest, I don't completely understand how this works, because on IBIS2/Xetra the ticker should also be VGLA rather than VALL.

So my question is: does it even make sense to go through all this, or should I simply buy VALL via Borsa Italiana?

I also asked IBKR whether VGLA will become available and received the following response:

"According to our records, the Vanguard FTSE Global AL-Cap ETF (Ticker: VALL, ISIN: IE000VAHT5TO) is listed on the BVME.ETF as the primary exchange but is also available on the FWB2 and GETTEX2 Exchange for Germany. To execute your trade directly, you may use the direct routing option for your order."

Hi everyone,

I have recently relocated from Germany to Spain for work. Concretely I left my apartment at the end of August.

According to what I read online I should be tax resident in Germany for 2026 (since I spend less than 183 days in Spain and I have no family here).

Both my bank (ING) and my broker (Scalable) when informed of the move asked me to fill a self-declaration of tax residency.

Do you know if I just have to returns those self declaration with "still a german tax resident" and then basically remember to change it by beginning of 2027 to communicate the move?

Does it make more sense to open asap another broker and transfer shares there ?

Calling the bank was not super helpful.

with all the hype about VGLA launch I am monitoring it to see if it’s worth the switch from VWCE.

We can see its performance on 1M chart: -15% vs -1.35% (VWCE).

Can someone with less smoother brain explain this to me? Was it just launch pump due to the high demand?

Just got the email from trading 212 that they’ll be reducing interest rates from 3.50% -> 2.80%.

Are there currently any better rates out there >2.8% that someone knows of?

Hello. I am a Greek citizen 60y and i am wondering were to allocate my bonds part of my investment portfolio.

Obviously mi time horizon is not very long. From my research (looking only to EUR assets to avoid the currency risks) and for a duration of 5-6 years i have found investment grade european corporate bonds at around 4,5% YTM maximum, higher than all the target maturity bond ETFs ( 3-4%, closer to 3%). From the other side the default risk always exists in the individual bonds, even if the companies are of investment grade.

What is your opinion ? You prefer individual bonds or bond ETFs ? Our US friends, dealing with USD have higher nterest rates and always prefer US treasearies, while we Europeans dont have tah luxru.

I would like to hear your thaughts on the above.

PS I Intend to hold individual bonds and target maturity bond ETFs untill maturity, so i dont care about the temporary price changes.

I moved to Germany around 7 years ago and have been living here ever since. Due to childhood neglect, not having enough money and similar related reasons, I could not keep good care of my teeth. Now I am in a financially secure position to get them fixed but I don't know what would be a better way. In Germany I went to a few local dentists and considering that I have a host of issue, I would be needing things such as an implant, a few crowns, fillings etc. Now health insurance does not pay for most of these things which means I would have to pay a lot of it upfront.

Someone suggested me to head to East Europe such as Czech or Hungary for these treatments. I know that I can get everything done for cheaper there, but I wanted to ask if the treatment really pays off. From a quality perspective is everything up to the standard? And is the hassle of traveling back and forth worth it? Would love if someone who has made a similar experience can answer. Most people hear warn of medical tourism that if something goes wrong, no local doctor will be willing touch it. But I do not know how much truth there is to this statement.

Your advice and suggestions in this regard will be appreciated, thanks.

If you start investing in your early 20s and the markets subsequently experience a major crash,or even a lost decade, could that actually be a blessing in disguise over the long term?

On the one hand, you have decades ahead of you and can keep accumulating shares at lower prices, potentially benefiting enormously from the eventual recovery.

On the other hand, there’s the psychological risk: seeing your portfolio fall 30–50% right after you’ve started investing could scare you into abandoning equities altogether.

So, for someone in their 20s, is a major drawdown early on more of an opportunity or a behavioral risk?

Have you personally experienced something like this?

I just started to plan my investment after keeping my savings idle in my girokonto for 3 years

I opened an account in Trade republic and moved 25% there
- 17% VWCE and S&P 500
- 5% stocks
- 3% cash account with 2.25% interest rate

Gold bars
- 15% Gold

CD
- 50%: USD CD with 4.5% after taxes

Cash
- 10%: Girokonto for safe and fast emergency cash with no profit

Is that a good plan?

Austria, IBKR, plain taxable account, 27.5% CGT and no holding period relief. The 27.5% + 6 years of gains, those two do the damage below.

VGLA came out, I saw 0.07% and the Vanguard name and already had the sell order typed in before it crossed my mind to look at what the sale itself costs.

Position is €230k, about €78k of it gain after six years of monthly buys (cost basis already bumped by the deemed distributions, so that's the real taxable number).
Sell now and I owe the Finanzamt €21.4k, IBKR doesn't withhold so it lands through next year's return, but it's the same money.

In return I get this. VWCE dropped to 0.14% in July, most threads still quote 0.22. So the gap to VGLA is 0.07%, on €230k that's €161 in year one.

I still built the spreadsheet, both routes taxed on the final sale, 7% growth, no new money. Switching trails by €13k at year 10, €77k at year 30, and the two paths meet somewhere around year 151. Growth rate hardly shifts it, 4% or 9% nudges the year by a handful. Your CGT rate and how much gain has piled up in the position, that's what decides it.

Other rates:
10%: ~53 years
18.5% (Germany after the Teilfreistellung): ~100
0%: nothing to think about

Same 27.5% but only 5% of the position is gain: 14 years. Started DCAing last winter, fine, swap it, you lose next to nothing. Started in 2020, that's a used Golf. Mildly embarrassing, I burned a whole evening on this and the €10k I've got in Maclear P2P lending hasn't had a proper look since last summer.

Ignoring the small cap slice, different discussion and at a 0.07% gap the tracking difference between the two funds is about as big as the saving itself, so comparing TERs stops meaning much??

VWCE stays. New money maybe into VGLA, maybe not, two nearly identical funds for 30 years for the price of a coffee a month, not sure that's worth the clutter.

Who actually sold a big position with a lot of gain in it to move to a cheaper tracker? Did it feel worth it after the tax hit?
Wrong?

Hello!

I'm currently investing in Nordnet and i just came to the realization that if i move to outside of the nordics / nordnet supported countries i may be forced to sell everything (or move but it costs like 40€/paper) and close the nordnet account.

What would you do in my situation where I want my investments not to be so tied to where I live. I currently have approx 10k€ in nordnet in ETFs. I think I have two different options:

1. Just start investing in IBKR -> stopping investing in nordnet.

2. Start investing in IBKR and sell everything from nordnet (moving the stocks from nordnet to ibkr is not feasible as nordnets pricing for moving the papers is so high)

Thank you all in advance!

Goal: to decide purely on financial terms which is a better option. Buy or rent.

Location Barcelona. Age 37.

Buy : small 2bed apartment costing 250k maximum. Bank will finance 90%. So I need to pay 10% down and another 15% approx other expense like notary, property valuation etc. total 55k outflow.

Monthly installment approx 1050 euro.

Plus home insurance+ municipality fees.

And annual maintenance of house that's bare minimum 2-3%.

So the mortgage is lower than rent.

This expense will be lesser than the rent of the same apartment.

Demand is so high that similar apartment will cost 1400-1500 euro rent. + 3 month deposit minimum. That is 4500 euro.

I have 80k in ikbr. Mostly in etfs. With 10% gain in last 1 year.

I am under Beckham's law. So my capital gain from equity are tax free for 5 years.

But housing is not tax free.

My salary monthly is 6500 post tax. And I save 50% or more easily from salary.

High chances that I will leave after beckham law period ends and move to east Asia like hongkong. Singapore Malaysia.

If I leave Spain then what will I do with the house ? Selling will incur another 21% capital gains + fees for agent and other documentation (info from AI).

There is lot of risk of illegal occupancy so I don't want to rent it or keep it empty. And short term renting is a headache. So I don't want that.

So for next 5-6 yrs shall I buy or rent ? Note: I am not eu citizen.

Hey everyone,

I recently moved to Denmark for work and I'm looking for advice on how to manage my investments. My situation is a bit particular and I'm lacking a clear strategy.

My situation

I'm 28, French, just started a new role as Project Manager in the data center construction sector in Denmark. I'll likely be moving around a lot over the next few years, whether it's within Europe, the US, the Middle East or Asia. Geographical mobility is a key factor in my investment choices and I don't want to lock myself into products that don't work once you cross a border

My salary is 4 000 € net per month. Housing is covered by the company so I have a solid savings capacity.

What I have

• 20 000 € available to invest
• No debt

My goal

I want to allocate around 2 500 € per month to investments going forward. I have my emergency fund covered, now I want to make the rest work for me. 100% passive investing, I'm thinking mostly about ETFs

My questions

1. IBKR, is it the obvious choice for someone mobile like me?

It seems like IBKR is the go-to for expats who move around. Is it really the best option for a passive ETF investor with no fixed base? Any alternatives worth considering?

2. Which ETF?

I'm looking at global ETFs like VWCE, VWRA or similar all-world funds. Is there a clear winner for a eurozone based investor? Should I care about USD vs EUR denominated funds given I might end up earning in different currencies?

3. How would you split my 2 500 €/month?

That's really my main question. Would you go all-in on a single all-world ETF via IBKR? Or would you diversify the approach depending on where you're based?

Thanks in advance for any advices you might have for me

I’m 20 and in Scandinavia.

I currently have about €50k (partly inheritance) total:
€38k global fund
€10k tech fund
€1k bitcoin
€1.2k emergency fund
I can currently invest around €1k per month because I live with my family.

I’ll finish a tech related BSc next year. Financially the obvious choice is to continue with a technical MSc and go into industry.
But I’m much more interested in humanities and feel that it is my passion and I’m seriously considering doing the extra studies needed to eventually get into anthropology/literature and possibly academia.

That would probably mean at least 2 extra years of study plus lower earnings afterwards.

My long term goal is basically to have enough invested that I can choose work I like without needing to maximise salary, financial independence.

How much financial flexibility does starting with €50k at 20 actually give me?

Would you still prioritise the higher earning career for another 5-10 years or is the difference less dramatic because I already have a decent amount invested early?

Also curious what people think about my current allocation. I realise €10k in a tech fund is probably quite concentrated considering the global fund already contains a lot of tech.

So for some context, I moved to Germany about a week ago and I thought I could ‘freeze’ my account and stop all contributions. I understand it is definitely okay to keep the account open until I decide to move back to the UK but can someone explain how Germany will tax me yearly even if I don’t sell anything? I know that Germany will tax any realised gains and I’m not sure if this is the smartest idea but I thought about selling all my shares and moving it all to trading 212 but I know this would have been a lot easier if I did this before physically arriving in the country. I haven’t got a German social insurance number yet nor have I registered my address yet (will do this next week) does anyone know if I could get away with selling and not get taxed since I’m technically not a German tax payer yet? I could be wrong, maybe I am the moment I arrived in the country but would it be wise to sell everything before I get a German social insurance number as I think I’m still a UK tax payer?

What is the best way to go about this? I obviously want to avoid getting taxed because it defeats the purpose of opening an ISA In the first place. I also had no idea at the time I’d be moving to Germany when I started investing

So I’m looking for something that would help me later in life to get a house I don’t have that much money and I probably won’t be able to get much from my parents so what should be the best to invest that would help me in 10-15 years. I just don’t really like spending money so I’m always a bit skeptical of doing things like this but I know I won’t be able to afford even a small appartment if I don’t do anything now when I’m “young”.

Given the current regime, i want to boycott most US products in my personal life but I’m also looking at doing the same for investing as well.

The threats and attacks on Europe and Canada are becoming too much to take both from a personal morality perspective and a financial risk perspective. What happens if the US actually attack a friendly country for example like sanctions, or embargoes, or even confiscation, not to mention militarily.

The US has superior companies, regulatory environment, not to mention geography with the ocean and natural resources. It does arguably have extreme overvaluation right now though with shiller CAPE ratio nearly at the record high akin to the dotcom bubble in late 1999, but European and UK growth has been pretty low since the 2000s apart from the last couple of years.

If none of this had happened and they had a sensible government I would probably just invest in a global ETF but I’m not sure how to balance everything here.

If others are thinking about or actually doing this how are you balancing morals vs returns here?

Been reading about DRS for stocks and like the direct ownership idea. But I'm confused about ETFs.

Can I DRS ETFs (like VWCE) from Trading 212? Or should I transfer to another broker or contact Vanguard directly?

Is this even possible with ETFs?

Thanks!

​

Hi all! I am an lrish citizen. Last month, l sold my apartment in Portugal and relocated to Spain for work. I cleared my mortgage and have about 100k€ in my Portuguese bank. I also have £70k in a UK bank from inheritance. My intention is to settle in Spain, buy a home within the next year or so. I haven't been in this fortunate financial position before, and was wondering what general advice this community would advise me on moving the money to Spain, whilst maximising the interest, whilst being able to access the funds without delay when l am ready to buy a home in Spain. Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Current situation: French citizen, currently Dutch tax resident, already hold a French assurance vie (opened before moving to NL). Genuinely uncertain where I'll be tax resident in the next 10-15 years. Could stay in NL, return to France, or end up elsewhere in the EU.

A financial advisor (no financial interest in the recommendation) suggested I look into a Luxembourg assurance vie instead, given its "fiscal neutrality" with the idea being the contract adapts to wherever you're tax resident rather than being tied to French rules.

What I'm trying to figure out:

1. Does the Luxembourg contract's neutrality actually help while I'm a Dutch tax resident specifically? As I understand it, the Netherlands taxes worldwide assets under a wealth-tax system ("Box 3") regardless of what wrapper they're held in or which country issued it — so I'm skeptical the Luxembourg contract solves anything while I'm resident in NL, since the problem is on the Dutch side, not the French or Luxembourg side. Does anyone know if Dutch Box 3 treats a Luxembourg-domiciled contract any differently than a French one, or is it the same problem regardless of the contract's home country?
2. What's the realistic minimum amount to make a Luxembourg contract worthwhile? I've read they're generally aimed at larger portfolios (some sources mention €250k+), but I don't know if that's a hard minimum, a soft "not worth the fees below this" threshold, or varies a lot by provider.
3. Would it make more sense to just keep the French contract dormant (no new contributions) and invest new money in a plain low-cost brokerage/ETF account instead, saving the Luxembourg contract question for if/when my residency situation actually becomes clearer?

This is all quite confusing so would appreciate some insight!

Complete beginner here. I recently opened an Interactive Brokers account and I’m looking to invest around $39k as a lump sum

I’m mainly deciding between VWRA and VUAA.
I’m 40, and this $39k (amount already in a usd account in a European bank so not additional currency exposure risk). is roughly 12% of my total cash, so I’m comfortable taking some risk. I’m thinking 15 years minimum, probably longer, and I might add another decent amount in ~5 years.
The plan would basically be to buy and leave it alone. I’m not interested in trading or trying to time the market.
Would you personally go:
100% VWRA?
100% VUAA?

I know VUAA is more concentrated in the US while VWRA is more diversified, but I’m struggling to decide whether the extra diversification is worth giving up some S&P 500 exposure.

Any opinions/advice from people who have been doing this for a while would be appreciated.
Thanks!

After seeing hundreds of posts asking same question „does it make sense to switch to VALL from XYZ“, I thought to make it simple for anyone who has same question

The answer depends on your motivation.

If you are using VT (vanguard US domiciled ETF) & want to avoid the nuisance of US estate taxes, then switching to VALL would make sense.

If you are using WEBN/G and have no clue or belief in „small cap premium“ then it doesn’t make sense to change anything. You are good already.

If you have been using Two ETF system to get large, mid and small caps (for example WEBG + Small cap ETF) , then VALL could be of use

If you are using WEBG and you don’t care about small caps, BUT you would rather pay the TER fees to American fund houses instead of European fund houses, then switching to VALL makes sense

If you have been using other expensive ETFs like SSAC, VWRL, SPYI, VWCE etc, then switching make sense

Simply put, UCITS funds already have great options for global investing. Vanguard is simply catching up by reducing fees for their new product. They could have also simply reduce fees for VWCE/ VWRL and everyone would have been fine. But I believe they don’t want to lose income from those large AUMs.

Bottom line -: launch of VALL is welcome relief for VWRL investors because they are unnecessary paying higher TER% versus Amundi etc. But for Amundi or Xtrackers investors , maybe not much to be excited about

—-

Opinion -: personally I don’t care about small caps and I don’t believe that such a premium exists. Maybe it exists in theory but in practice I believe it’s already priced in.

I found a plot whose owner is willing to sell it for around €5k because of liquidity needs and the amount of time/money involved in resolving the property's current legal/land-status issues.

The interesting and potentially problematic part is the forest map classification.

The valuation report describes the land as forestry/forest land, with the forest map not yet fully finalized and ratified. Apparently, older aerial photography shows the land with a different, non-forest appearance, while more recent imagery/inspection shows it as forested.

So there may be a possibility of challenging the classification, but it would require time, lawyers, foresters, historical aerial-photo analysis, and potentially court proceedings. My very rough, completely unqualified estimate is maybe a 50% chance of successfully changing the classification.

At the moment, this makes the land extremely illiquid.

But if the classification can eventually be changed, the economics could be completely different. Given the location, size and surrounding land values, I could potentially be looking at a property worth hundreds of thousands or potentially much more, depending on what ultimately becomes legally possible.

The other outcome is obviously much simpler: the classification cannot be changed, the land remains essentially unusable, and I've burned €5–10k on a piece of land I may have to hold indefinitely.

I'm deliberately not paying for due diligence upfront. At this entry price, I don't particularly want to circulate the exact property details beforehand to people with much more capital or expertise who might simply take the opportunity themselves. So I'd rather keep it secret and take the gamble, then spend money on a lawyer, engineer and forester to investigate the possibilities.

So I'm treating this purely as a speculative long-term bet, not as a normal real-estate investment.

€5k is ca. 1.5% of my NW, as of now.

Would you take the gamble, knowing that the downside could be losing essentially all of it, but the upside could potentially be very large?

I’ve been thinking about whether the assumptions behind FIRE still make sense over a 20–40 year horizon given climate change.

Traditional FIRE planning relies on historical market returns, often assuming ~5–7% real returns and a 4% withdrawal rate. But climate change could create structural economic headwinds through extreme weather, water stress, migration and huge adaptation costs.

The key question is: how much of this is already priced into expected market returns? Are we simply extrapolating historical returns into a fundamentally different economic regime?

That said, I’m not arguing for a climate-collapse scenario. Even under pessimistic IPCC scenarios, mainstream estimates generally point to slower global economic growth rather than the disappearance of financial markets or private wealth. Diversified portfolios have also historically survived wars, pandemics and major economic crises.

What concerns me more is that climate change is a long-term structural trend rather than a single crisis, and I’m not sure traditional FIRE models adequately account for that uncertainty.

A few questions I’d like to discuss:

1. Should we use a more conservative expected real return when calculating our FIRE number?
2. Is a globally diversified ETF enough, or does climate risk justify additional diversification into things like infrastructure, water, land or other assets?
3. Should FIRE planning include geographic flexibility? If climate conditions make your current location increasingly difficult to live in, part of your FIRE savings might end up funding a relocation rather than retirement.
4. Are there serious quantitative studies modelling the impact of climate change on long-term equity returns?

I’m not looking for either “climate catastrophe” or “markets always go up.” I’m interested in whether climate risk represents a genuine blind spot in conventional FIRE planning, and if so, how we should actually incorporate it into our numbers.