[34/NL] Looking for tips to get ahead

@lightlovehope Personally, I think your cash flow statement is somewhat reasonable, but I do find you lacking in the asset department. Sure, the crypto might balloon, but it's a bit guessing, and your house (basically a liability with some inflation hedge capabilities) is not too bad, but I do think the taxable portfolio could be bigger and your savings as well, before you start to consider a 3m Italian mansion or two new cars.

More as an answer to your questions, I don't know if you think your kids will study in The Netherlands, Italy or elsewhere and this could drastically impact the needed savings. In the Netherlands, with your income level, you could basically cashflow them through higher education at a good university, but if they decide to go to the U.S. or elsewhere, you might need to save up for them and probably conservatively invest to maintain purchasing power.

Tips for retirement would be to further analyse your pensions at existing employers (any possibility to increase tax-exempt to your existing schemes? optionality to purchase jaarruimte life savings which are also tax-deductable after your expat ruling changes?) and the long-term income a 100k+80k gross income will yield after you've been here long enough (11k sounds expat/high on the net side, daycare tax rebate is high for an 180k household). I read down here your retirement will be along the lines of 7k, but is this guaranteed, expected and do you think you need to further build on the retirement accounts?
 
@somecat Thanks for your well thought out response. I do think my house is more then a inflation hedge, key location and desirable house type. If we ever go London mode I'm holding a winning ticket.

I did not take into consideration the kids wanting the study in the US or other private-style university. Will discuss this with my wife and see how we want to tackle this.

I'm not an expat, homegrown cheese and milk. I used the NIBUD calculator, which adds the tax brakes (mortgage and daycare) into your income. I added my conservative bonus (points based) as a holiday. I will look into the jaarruimte life savings.

Income overview: https://i.postimg.cc/HkCR6LWB/image.png

Pension overview: https://i.postimg.cc/FKNtHJxL/Pension-v1.png

The above assumes I keep working and contributing at the current pace until I retire. As I understand it, the problem with the Dutch retirement system is you only get the full amount at age 67 (which I bet will go up to 69..). If you want to retire early you need to bridge those years with savings.
 
@lightlovehope Apologies, with the gross-to-net breakdown and post in English I incorrectly assumed an expat couple. Your latter assumption is correct. In case you stop contributing at 55 or 60, your expected pension will likely drop. Depending if you have a DC or DB model, I personally calculate a 2,5-3% drop in the expected pension per year stopped working. Since you're in the comfortable position of having a rather large pension, you could look into some tax/timing arbitrage, either by frontloading your retirement savings (contribute to jaarruimte and maximizing contributions if you have a say in it, while you're young) or by decreasing contributions in your elder years (stopping working and paying into retirement once you reach 55-60, so you'll end up with 15-20% less in pensions).

If you go to Italy, this will affect your AOW as well, but it seems like there's a sufficiently high cushion. Regarding the house as a liability instead of an asset; you indicate the desire to at some point trade in the house for the Italian mansion. It will help to build some wealth, but at the same time, you don't expect to cash out on your house as it seems. If you keep the principal in your house and start to pay down the mortgage, it's not yielding active income, more like decreasing your liabilities which you will then increase again by upgrading (lifestyle inflation). If you do go to London or elsewhere where you start renting, are you going to sell the house and push everything into a passive income product? Again, house, pensions and taxable accounts are where my comments on liabilities vs. assets are coming from.
 
@lightlovehope from someone your age who hasnt had a straight upwards trajectory like this.

the land rover is an easy target, i guess. there are cheaper ways of getting around. dreams are for children anyways. you cant really count on crypto keeping its value forever as these do not have much intrinsic value. id probably look at dumping crypto and the rest into the mortgage. you probably dont want foreclosure risk as an axe above your head forever so its important to pay that off if you can because you might get sick or something. you could also look at a smaller home, if that is something your family is open to. joint mortgage also brings divorce risk. unless you guys are extremely religious or there is another reason that is extremely unlikely i dont think such a huge joint mortgage is wise if you can take steps to avoid it (which you should be able to, you are a lot richer than me). as for your aspirations, i am aware this does not contribute to them, but risks are more important. because you are up so high, you have a lot of room for falling.
 
@taranmicheal Typing my response I conclude our world views differ greatly! Thanks for bringing your perspective. I understand where you are coming from, but I have a different approach to things.

I wouldn't say dreams are for children. I get great fulfillment out of my life chasing dreams. One of our dreams was having a really nice house which we worked our asses of for - and knowing the goal made it bearable. I would say, being able to chase dreams is a luxury and we should treasure it.

I will never decrease the mortgage, its 2.5%.. I'm sure it would be much better to make investments with 4-6% returns. Plus the mortgage tax break. Right now I'm loving the inflation which is defacto whiping out the mortgage - assuming my loan keeps getting corrected.

Sickness, death, divorce(?), disasters, etc can all happen and are an inherent risk in life. I hedged some of them with insurance. Right now it is unthinkable that we would divorce, should that happen my whole financial planning and life goals/style are out of the window anyway. I'm working on a stable family life by spending time on mental/physical health
 

Similar threads

Back
Top