Hello there,
I'm totally new in investing. Thanks to Baptiste's incredibly rich blog, I was able to learn a lot and decided to start the journey.
My financial profile is atypical, probably like many of you.
Although I was working for years in a quite decent role, I since have a severe health issue that prevents me any professional activity. After years waiting for the Swiss AI (Invalidity Insurance), I'm now getting a monthly income. Those years waiting made me very frugal, I sold my car, my house and got rid of most of my belongings, and moved into a small flat that is lovely, ideally located and with a very small rent. I have no debts and credits (I never had excepted the loan for my former house). Selling the house and an heritage from my family was money I saved, along with all the retroactive sums that AI finally gave me back. I didn't spend a cent of that. It's quite fun to see that most of advices Baptist gives in his blog are the ones I'm already applying daily for years for living. Reading the blog gave me a kick to decide I should have a try.
With those savings, and the perspective I wouldn't work anymore, I was able to start investing.
- Real Estate : in late 2023 I bought 3.5 room apartment. It took some months to find a suitable renter, but now it's fine, that gives me a stable revenue. My bank lent me 25% of the amount with a 3% variable interest rate. That's not good but enough to start the journey in investing in real estate. And in Feb 2025 I was able to renegotiate the rate with a fixed interest rate of 1.5%, thus halving the expense. Also, I'm in a ideal situation with all other co-owners very kind and helpful, savings focused so the yearly expenses for the building, heating and maintenance are very reasonable but also very professional : the place won't depreciate and is very attractive.
- Managed Portfolio : In Jan 2025 I discovered ThePoorSwiss blog by luck (thanks ChatGPT), and spent time to read it. My bank suggested a mandate to manage the money in my savings account. I know that this is less performant that managing myself but anyway I could have a try, and wasn't ready to start myself. We decided to have a try. With the amount I deposited, they offered me the mortgage rate I mentioned above. I quickly made the calculation that it's around 900.-/year and that should compensate the mandate fees, so why not.
- ETFs with brokers : I spend some time to read Baptiste's blog, and with the help of GPT4o (which is now my personal financial advisor and financial teacher), I opened the following 2 accounts : SaxoInvest and InteractiveBrokers.
SUMMARY:
Meanwhile, I keep my frugal life. The only major expense (apart from the LAMAL insurance) is an annual AG (SBB/CFF train pass) that I really benefit using. I agree with Baptiste that it's expensive, but for my specific profile it's really a good expense.
I also have a LLC since 2019, but because of my health issues I'm not able to use it since 2020 ;-( However I keep it "just in case", and it also helped me open professional customer accounts at some retailers that didn't accept domestic accounts. I've read what Baptiste has done with his own LLC, maybe I should try too.
Last but not least, I was curious about the ROI of having solar panels. Due to my small flat, I could just install 2x200W panels, and a 1'280Wh LiFePo battery. That's enough to power part of my lights, mobile devices including laptops, domestic network and a few additional things. But for >150 days/year the performance is really poor (winter, weather etc). After running for now 3 years, I was able to calculate the benefit ratio. My estimate is 12-15 years with actual electricity rates (and I made all the installation myself, I'm qualified for that so it is really optimal). So no, unless electricity bills increase massively I don't believe solar energy is really worth it. I keep the installation but don't plan to extend it. It was an interesting experiment...
I'm curious about your feedback on my investment choices. I'm really new in this and hope this will be okay. Note that I should not be in great trouble if I loose the money invested (I hope not), that's the reason I was okay to start trying. GPT4o is also a great help to synthetize all information I needed to learn and understand, help me make some choices and I count on it to help me in the future for this. If you didn't do it yet, just give it a try.
I'm totally new in investing. Thanks to Baptiste's incredibly rich blog, I was able to learn a lot and decided to start the journey.
My financial profile is atypical, probably like many of you.
Although I was working for years in a quite decent role, I since have a severe health issue that prevents me any professional activity. After years waiting for the Swiss AI (Invalidity Insurance), I'm now getting a monthly income. Those years waiting made me very frugal, I sold my car, my house and got rid of most of my belongings, and moved into a small flat that is lovely, ideally located and with a very small rent. I have no debts and credits (I never had excepted the loan for my former house). Selling the house and an heritage from my family was money I saved, along with all the retroactive sums that AI finally gave me back. I didn't spend a cent of that. It's quite fun to see that most of advices Baptist gives in his blog are the ones I'm already applying daily for years for living. Reading the blog gave me a kick to decide I should have a try.
With those savings, and the perspective I wouldn't work anymore, I was able to start investing.
- Real Estate : in late 2023 I bought 3.5 room apartment. It took some months to find a suitable renter, but now it's fine, that gives me a stable revenue. My bank lent me 25% of the amount with a 3% variable interest rate. That's not good but enough to start the journey in investing in real estate. And in Feb 2025 I was able to renegotiate the rate with a fixed interest rate of 1.5%, thus halving the expense. Also, I'm in a ideal situation with all other co-owners very kind and helpful, savings focused so the yearly expenses for the building, heating and maintenance are very reasonable but also very professional : the place won't depreciate and is very attractive.
- Managed Portfolio : In Jan 2025 I discovered ThePoorSwiss blog by luck (thanks ChatGPT), and spent time to read it. My bank suggested a mandate to manage the money in my savings account. I know that this is less performant that managing myself but anyway I could have a try, and wasn't ready to start myself. We decided to have a try. With the amount I deposited, they offered me the mortgage rate I mentioned above. I quickly made the calculation that it's around 900.-/year and that should compensate the mandate fees, so why not.
- ETFs with brokers : I spend some time to read Baptiste's blog, and with the help of GPT4o (which is now my personal financial advisor and financial teacher), I opened the following 2 accounts : SaxoInvest and InteractiveBrokers.
SUMMARY:
- 250'000.- in an apartment that I rent out for 1,150/month, with 3,000 in annual owner charges, and a 60'000 mortgage at a fixed rate of 1.5% for 5 years.
- 55'000.- in a Raiffeisen Futura Swissness managed portfolio, with a 10-year investment horizon, with a "Stocks" profile (most agressive).
- SaxoInvest account opened to test CHSPI ETFs, 5'500.- also with a 10-year investment horizon. That's 10% of the Managed Portfolio.
- InteractiveBrokers account opened to test Vanguard Total World (VT) ETFs. 5'500.- , also with a 10-year investment horizon. And also 10% of the Managed Portfolio.
Meanwhile, I keep my frugal life. The only major expense (apart from the LAMAL insurance) is an annual AG (SBB/CFF train pass) that I really benefit using. I agree with Baptiste that it's expensive, but for my specific profile it's really a good expense.
I also have a LLC since 2019, but because of my health issues I'm not able to use it since 2020 ;-( However I keep it "just in case", and it also helped me open professional customer accounts at some retailers that didn't accept domestic accounts. I've read what Baptiste has done with his own LLC, maybe I should try too.
Last but not least, I was curious about the ROI of having solar panels. Due to my small flat, I could just install 2x200W panels, and a 1'280Wh LiFePo battery. That's enough to power part of my lights, mobile devices including laptops, domestic network and a few additional things. But for >150 days/year the performance is really poor (winter, weather etc). After running for now 3 years, I was able to calculate the benefit ratio. My estimate is 12-15 years with actual electricity rates (and I made all the installation myself, I'm qualified for that so it is really optimal). So no, unless electricity bills increase massively I don't believe solar energy is really worth it. I keep the installation but don't plan to extend it. It was an interesting experiment...
I'm curious about your feedback on my investment choices. I'm really new in this and hope this will be okay. Note that I should not be in great trouble if I loose the money invested (I hope not), that's the reason I was okay to start trying. GPT4o is also a great help to synthetize all information I needed to learn and understand, help me make some choices and I count on it to help me in the future for this. If you didn't do it yet, just give it a try.
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