After some initial hick ups (imagine my first Monday morning stuck in traffic after 12 months of traveling) the routine of working life kicked back in. A decent income led to some sort of a savings rate that cannot be backtracked precisely.
How not to invest
I had had an earlier bad experience with a
financial advisor (for you Dutchies; think woekerpolis!) so at least I was
aware I would be better of sorting myself out. This kept the costs of my
investments down so at least I got that right.. However, it turned out I suck
at stock picking and timing, which I now know is true for almost everybody.
Arguably, the market nose-dive because of the financial crisis was not helping
and I chickened out disillusioned around 2010.
What really matters
I was more successful in other areas of life and had met my girlfriend (by now FI partner in crime) and by 2013 we had our first child (the count is stuck at two at the moment). We initially rented a small and expensive house but in 2014 the financial crisis had drawn down housing prices and interest rates by so much that an annuity mortgage on a semi-detached house would work out cheaper than renting. Whether that is really true when you include maintenance can be debated but we took the plunge and bought our family home and don’t regret it one bit.
The money we had been able to save from 2010 onwards was used to pay for the costs involved in purchasing the house (tax, mortgage, formal documentation etc.) and to pay 10% of the house in cash. The leftover cash was mostly used for renovations. With 90% loan-to-value (LTV) our mortgage had a 3.3% interest fixed for 10 years.
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