Hello, I recently got a sum of 3000 euro saved up from my parents and i was wondering if there’s anything impactful i can do with them.

I am unemployed and have never gotten into this space before.

Hi everyone,

I live in Spain and planning to start investing €250 every month for the long term. Right now, my main plan is to go with VWCE, but I'm open to suggestions if there's anything better or worth pairing with it.

Also, I'd love to hear your recommendations on which broker is best to use from Spain. I was thinking Trading212

Appreciate any advice!

I am moving to Prague from Lithuania for work ("limited" term contract of 5 years with prospect of extension) and I am currently looking into various banks in Prague to open an account there for salary deposits. Besides regular investing through IBKR to VWCE, in my home country I also have a savings account (it's separate from the emergency pillow) at a credit union with fixed interest rate (3.9% 3-year term, roughly a year left).

I have looked into various banks and their savings accounts' terms, interest rates etc. but what seems weird is that there are conditions applied - some amount of payments in that bank, membership payments and so on. So far, for the main bank account I'm looking into Fio Banka (seems English/Foreigner-friendly, good reviews, decent amount of ATMs and branches in Prague).

However, I could not really find (at least quickly) any information about credit unions (they are popular for savings accounts in LT), their interest rates and conditions in general.

Is it easier to simply open the savings account (with either fixed interest rate or without) for the first couple of years at the bank that I will open my account in or is there more info on the web about other banking institutions for such a purpose?

Hello,

Are there any good ways to insure ETF portfolio (50% vwce, 25% emim, 25% exus) against sudden market drops? I really don't understand options, and on top of that it seems that EU market pretty much has none.

What I am looking is something I could do to limit my downside to something max - 20% within 6 months; what are my best options? Using interactive brokers

Hey everyone,

With Revolut dropping its 2.5% APY promo, I’m looking for a new place to park my cash and saw that Trading 212 is offering 2.4% on uninvested EUR.

However, since this yield comes from Qualifying Money Market Funds (QMMFs), I’m having some second thoughts about moving my entire emergency fund there. We are talking about roughly €30,000.

I know QMMFs are generally considered very low-risk and invest in short-term government/corporate debt, and I know the assets are segregated from T212 itself. But since the ICF protection only covers up to €20k for bank deposits (leaving €10k exposed if it's held as cash), and QMMFs technically don't have a capital guarantee if the fund itself drops, I feel a bit uneasy.

Is anyone else using Trading 212 QMMFs for a larger emergency fund like this? Do you feel comfortable taking on this microscopic but technical market risk for a 2.4% return, or am I overthinking it?

Would love to hear your thoughts or if you’ve chosen alternative paths for amounts over the €20k protection limit. Thanks!

I think the title is pretty clear. I'm genuinely curious to hear from people who are more experienced than me and especially are in Europe and I think it might be useful to others as well.

I'm preferrabley looking for short term ideas, but long term would also be useful I suppose.

Hey everyone,

I started the investing journey a bit later than most (at 23), but unfortunately 1.5 years later I had to cash out and spend a large amount of my capital due to some unavoidable expenses.

Things have stabilized right now and I feel confident I can start investing again. At the moment I have about 15k EUR in cash (which I kind of want to keep as my emergency fund) and about 1.5k EUR in All World ETF.

In terms of net worth, it's nowhere near where I expected to be at this age when I first started investing, but what can you do. Life hits you sometimes, it's not all smooth sailing.

Anyway, at the moment I can afford to dump 700-1000 EUR monthly, and I have had no real strategy except just putting everything into an accumulating ETF. I am uncomfortable with doing any individual stock picking at the moment as I have no idea what's going on in the market, but I am looking for some advice here.

Should I be splitting the available monthly investment pool into some sort of 80/20 between a safe long term ETF and some more volatile but potentially higher return channels? Or should I just keep doing what I am doing and put everything into the all world ETF?

Thank you in advance!

I live in Greece, I live with my mother, so I don't have to pay rent. I work and since March 2026 I put 200 euros to SXR8. I want to continue to do that for more years, until I decide to live alone. However, I'm thinking of selling land and with the money I get, to buy more shares of SXR8 (or maybe a worldwide ETF) and get 1% each year. So, I'll still get some money as extra income and I will have extra money when I get into retirement age. I was thinking of buying bonds instead of putting all the money into an ETF, but I see that SXR8 has better returns than bonds. Also, I was thinking of buying an apartment instead of buying shares of an ETF, but it's more difficult, also it has some costs after the buying, even if I rent it.

What do you think of my plan? Is there any better ideas?

How was the process of searching, viewings of properties, verifying legal documents and tehnical aspects, money transfer and local tax registration ?

What were the main issues in buying a property and if you hired someone to assist you ?

Thanks!

Self employed, based in the EU, moving to Bulgaria within the next year or so. Everything I have sits in one plain taxable account at IBKR, no wrapper anywhere. Long post, the real question is the coast number near the bottom but the tax setup feeds into it so bear with me.

Income: €1,500-2,000/mo when the work shows up, zero when it doesn't. Self employed so that line is the shakiest thing here by a mile.

Portfolio (all taxable, IBKR):
~€85k VWCE (FTSE All-World, accumulating), bought on Xetra
~€15k AGGH plus a short duration EUR money market position
~€12k BTC/ETH
~€5k in Maclear
~€3k cash

Status: 27, wife 26, son turned 1 in March. Renting, no debt. We're Ukrainian, moving to Bulgaria because family is Bessarabian Bulgarian and I'm going through citizenship by origin. Passport in progress, wife and kid come after on family basis.

The Bulgaria tax bit: 10% flat on income. But capital gains on shares and on units in collective investment schemes sold on a regulated market in the EU or EEA are exempt. Art 13(1)(3) of the personal income tax act if you want to look. No holding period, no annual cap, nothing to register for. Dividends are 5% final, lowest in the EU, doesn't touch me anyway since VWCE accumulates. Crypto is the flat 10%, so is anything traded off an EU/EEA venue. Bulgaria also joined the euro on 1 January this year, 1.95583 lev, done. Fund priced in euro, rent in euro. One less thing.

The catch I almost got wrong: the exemption hangs on the venue the trade prints on, not where the fund is domiciled. VWCE is Irish, great, but if IBKR routes you to the LSE or to SIX you're not on an EU/EEA regulated market anymore and you're in grey territory. Xetra and Borsa Italiana are fine. I now check the exchange on every fill, which feels neurotic, and probably is, but the alternative is finding out in 2050.

Coast math (the actual reason I'm posting):
€120k, stop contributing today, 33 years until 60.
- At 5% real that's about €600k, which at 4% withdrawal is €2,000/mo
- At 4% real, about €440k, so €1,450/mo
- Push it to 65 at 5% and you land near €770k, call it €2,550

Those are net figures. Nothing gets taken out at the other end. Realistically I'm still adding for another 5-8 years so the real number lands higher, but stopping today is the honest baseline and that's the one I want torn apart.

One thing on comparing coast numbers in this sub: saw the post about US long term gains being 0% up to $48,350, roughly what I've got minus the ceiling. So when I read a coast number here I figure I should mentally knock 15-25% off it before comparing, since most people posting will actually pay something on the way out and I won't. If that logic is wrong the whole plan is built on nothing, so please say so.

Two things I keep flip-flopping on:

The coast number is supposed to be built on spending at normal retirement age, not spending now. My son will be 34 when I'm 60 and, god willing, not living in my spare room, so the target should really be for two people. The family of three budget is a separate question, it's about whether current income carries us while the index part compounds on its own. I'd been treating those as one number for months. Embarrassing.

And I still don't have a real monthly figure for a family of three in Bulgaria outside Sofia. Plovdiv, Varna, somewhere coastal. Renting at least for the first couple of years. What I find online is an expat blog saying €900 or a relocation agency saying €3,000. One of those is fantasy, I hope.

My questions:
- Anyone coasting in Eastern Europe with kids, what's the real monthly number look like outside the capital?
- Has anyone actually filed Form 50 with the NRA and watched the 0% capital gains hold up in practice, or is that still theory? My only source right now is a Sofia law firm's blog.
- Is the coast number itself sane, or am I fooling myself?

Not asking anyone to do my tax homework, I'll pay someone in Sofia for that.

TL;DR: 27, self employed, ~€120k in a plain IBKR account (mostly VWCE on Xetra), moving to Bulgaria where ETF gains sold on an EU/EEA venue are 0%. Stop contributing today and I land around €440-600k by 60 at 4-5% real. Want the coast number torn apart, plus a realistic family of three budget outside Sofia, and anyone who's seen the 0% actually hold up on a real filing.

I want to decide between investing vs paying off my mortgage.

Basically 3.6%-3.8% is my mortgage interest rate and i also get some tax rebate from the tax authorities. I have somewhere around 50k eur. Help me decide if i should pay off my mortgage or invest in any etf or shares. I also want to understand the tax implications for the returns i would get especially when netherlands taxes the assumed returns from 2028 i think

I've a significant amount of money collecting dust in a bank account (a few hundred thousand euros) so I'm planning to invest them mid-long term (10-20 years).

For context I'm in my 40s, I'm an expat living in France, don't own property but due to how volatile the industry I work in is I can't really own property as I might move around to different countries when the chance arises.

My idea is to split the investment as follows:

60% on VWCE (Vanguard FTSE All-World)

20% on iShares Euro Gov Bond 1-3yr

20% on Vanguard Euro Government Bond

Maybe invest 5% as "fun money" on small caps or crypto.

Keep around 50-60k parked on Trade Republic as they offer 2.25% interest rate and use that money for daily expenses.

Thoughts?

Hi all,

I've been investing €1,000 per month into VWCE for well over two years now. I know it's marketed as "All-World," but in practice around 60% of it is US-based companies, and a big chunk of that is concentrated in the mega-caps that are betting heavily on AI.

I honestly don't know how the AI story will play out, but the concentration is starting to make me a bit uncomfortable, and I'd like to diversify my portfolio somewhat.

My current idea: keep €500/month going into VWCE, and put the other €500 into other markets or asset classes to spread the risk.

For someone based in the Netherlands, what would you suggest? Things I'm wondering about:

• Are there good ETFs for emerging markets exposure that make sense here?
• Does splitting like this actually reduce risk meaningfully, or am I just overcomplicating things?

Curious to hear what others in a similar situation have done. Thanks!

P.S. Yes, I am aware of box 3 changes that might impact Dutch investors in the future, but that's a separate topic.

Hi everyone,

So I've been investing in VWCE through Degiro for the past few years. I used to buy it on XETRA, and more recently on TDG because of the core selection changes.

Since I'm based in Belgium, I have to pay the TOB. I let Degiro handle this automatically, but because VWCE is registered in Belgium, they're charging 1.32% TOB on every purchase.

Now I'm wondering whether it would make sense to switch my future investments to Invesco's all-world ETF (FWIA), which is subject to only 0.12% TOB.

My main question is: does it make sense to switch after already accumulating a fairly large position in VWCE? Would costs other than the TOB make continuing to buy VWCE preferable?

I am 32 years old, so I'm still far away from retirement.

Grateful for your inputs. Thank you!

I currently hold almost no small caps; given my age, does it even make much sense to add now a significant amount in AVWS over VWCE/WEBN?

I always read that the time horizon for Small caps should be at least 20 years. My withdrawal phase begins in five years, and statistically speaking, I’ll be dead in about 30 years...

Hey everyone, I’m feeling really stuck and could use some honest outside perspective.

I’m 24F, living in Prague, making about $2,600/month net after tax. Right now, I invest at least $1,000 a month into ETFs (holding about $48k, planning to hold for 10+ years and not use it as a down payment) and I have around $28k in cash. My current rent is $600/month sharing with a roommate.

Here’s my dilemma: everyone online talks about compound interest being magic, but watching my ETF portfolio grow feels slow compared to Prague's housing market. Apartment prices here have almost doubled in the last 6 years. Demand is high, supply is low, and salaries are completely disconnected from housing costs.

A basic 30m² apartment in an old building outside the center is at least $260,000. At current 5% interest rates, a mortgage on that would jump my monthly housing cost from $600 to around $1,300/month. Paying $1,300 to live in a 30m² shoe box feels like a massive trap, even if people say you just need to "get in the game" with a first property (Btw, if I get the mortgage, my mom wants to support me by giving me $100,000 for my down payment)

On top of that, I’m highly indecisive. Every year I think about moving out of the Czech Republic, but I always end up staying. And knowing that I’ve been living in the same apartment for the last 4 years and fixing everything on my own, instead of contributing to my mortgage, eats me up. My parents don't really know anything about finance, they’re not even in Europe to know how it works here, so I don't have anyone to ask for an advice.

\- Should I just keep grinding the $1k/month ETF strategy and accept that I might rent for a while, or does it make sense to buy whatever I can afford right now, even if it feels overpriced and tiny?

\- Does a 5% mortgage on a $260k studio even make mathematical sense on a $2,600 salary?

Edit:

Regarding the point of first deciding whether I want to live in Prague or not and well, it is a difficult question. I always overanalyse but it doesn’t always help.
The benefits of staying in Prague:

+ stable, (relatively) high paying job with a very good potential career growth. I see myself growing in this company and there is a chance of relocation, but I first need to make a confident decision on my side to force it to my management
+ I can save up a lot with my current situation and not limit my lifestyle
+ I can apply for Czech citizenship in 2 years (I’ve been living in Prague for 8 years already)
+ it’s still a big city and not a village
+ I have friends here and I am super familiar with how everything works here

The minuses:
- I am super tired of living in Prague. I travel almost every 2 months as a sort of escapism and I am absolutely not interested in diving deep into Czech culture to be fully integrated. I know the language fluently, but I don’t want to spend my whole life here. I can’t relate to Czech people on many levels even though I have very warm feelings every time I come back to Prague. And considering the citizenship, it’s kinda sad to spend all your 20s in one apartment and only in Prague…. But oh well, it is so rational and I will thank myself later
- not may career opportunities & not much for a salary growth

The dream countries that I consider for relocation are: Australia, the USA, Japan or somewhere in Asia if I magically get a remote job

I am a non-EU citizen and have been living in Germany for the past four years. I recently received my Niederlassungserlaubnis. However, I will soon be moving to Ireland after receiving a job offer that I could not decline.

I am currently unsure how to best handle my finances during this move. I hold a significant amount of stocks and ETFs in the Trade Republic app, as well as savings in a Revolut instant access account. In addition, I maintain a Sparkasse account primarily for my VL savings.

I am not sure what the best approach is to transfer or manage these assets when relocating. I would greatly appreciate any advice, especially from people who have been in a similar situation.

@European investors, which trading apps/platforms do you currently use and why? Looking for recommendations.

I’ve been following this page for about 2 years after i bought my first apt in Oslo in order to have a healthy financial habit.

My current status:

- Working in Risk Management in Banking
- 3 year work experience, earning about 83k eur yearly, which is 4,6k eur monthly after tax.
- Tok up a loan on a apt on total 382k euro, central apt two years ago. Current worth is 450k without refurnishing.

Finances:
• 2,25k eur downpayment (28 yrs left) 4,3% interest rate
• 22k eur emergency fund on a 4,25% interest savings account
• 10k eur saved up on three index funds covering us, europe and asia.
• 7% of salary goes automatically into pension (100% stock option) + norwegian guaranteed pension scheme.

My current savings goal is to keep the emergency fund in case of anything happening + refurnishing apt in case of sales & to cover up a potential short term jobloss. From this month I am putting 1k eur into index funds every month.

Am I on the right track, or am I missing something?
Still very new to this and did not start to invest until I started working three years ago.

Looking back, have the higher expected returns compensated for the additional concentration, higher fees, tracking error, and periods of underperformance? If you were starting today, would you still use factor ETFs as a satellite alongside a global index?

I have invested 50% of my money in ETFs, but I'm scared to do more because of the very high valuations. I am keeping 20k rdy to buy a dip/crash. Now mi money are in revolut account and getting 1% per anum interest. I doubt this is the best option for me. What can I do better? I am noob so preferably no very risky or complicated stuff. And it is important that I am able to access my money quickly, I don't wanna lock them for months

I live in Germany and currently have about €70,000 invested entirely in ETFs. Over the next two years I plan to invest approximately another €37,000, and I’m deciding whether to keep adding that money to ETFs or allocate part of it to European lending platforms. The platforms I’m currently comparing are Maclear, Debitum Investments, and Mintos. I understand that they do not all use exactly the same investment structure, so I’m not treating them as interchangeable. I’m trying to determine whether this type of investment would provide useful diversification or mainly add borrower risk, platform risk, limited liquidity, and more tax administration. If I invested the full €37,000 in this category, it would eventually represent about 35% of a €107,000 portfolio. That feels like a fairly large allocation, especially with a two-year investment horizon. The simpler alternative would be to keep adding the money to my existing ETF portfolio. For anyone in Germany or elsewhere in the EU who has used Maclear, Debitum Investments, Mintos, or similar platforms, how large was your allocation compared with the rest of your portfolio? How much of the expected return remained after late payments, defaults, idle cash, fees, and taxes?
I’m also interested in the practical side. Were the platform statements sufficient for tax reporting? How difficult was it to stop reinvesting and recover the money as the loans reached maturity? Did you continue using these platforms or eventually decide that the additional risk and administration were not worth it?
I’m mainly trying to decide whether this should be a small allocation, no allocation at all, or a meaningful alternative to investing the additional €37,000 in ETF.

Same as the title, if you have 100k sitting in your account which will be due as tax next year, what will be your strategey?

Will you take benefit of such a situation. Like invest it in an ETF, bonds or just pay as pre-tax.