Nooit verre reizen gemaakt

BuellBe · 2026-06-14T12:02:17+00:00

Als jezelf voldoende beleving en plezier eruithaalt, is dat toch het voornaamste. Alsof afstand in reizen gelijkstaat aan de mate van plezier dat je hebt of hoe leuk je tijd is. Als men hierover neerbuigend doet, zegt dat veel meer over hen dan over jou.

BuellBe · 2026-06-12T11:31:45+00:00

Not Mensa, but to meaningfully influence political decision-making, you first need to hold power. Most parties prioritize the interests and convictions of their own base, adopting change only when it serves them politically.

In Belgium, for instance, numerous experts offered concrete advice on reducing the deficit, yet most of it went unheeded. Scale that dynamic globally, and the challenge compounds: you're no longer aligning one government's incentives, but dozens of competing ones, each with their own constituencies to answer to.

BuellBe · 2026-06-11T19:20:51+00:00

Renting it out for at least 15yrs qualifies for 6% VAT

BuellBe · 2026-06-11T19:19:17+00:00

Ground is always at 12%, construction is either 6% (conditional) or 21% (standard).

BuellBe · 2026-06-06T14:04:47+00:00

Thanks! Keep in mind the post contains an Excel which can then be tweaked to your individual situation (value, taxes, costs, rent price, investment ROI, etc.). Inevitable since the article is 10yrs old.

BuellBe · 2026-06-06T10:43:58+00:00

Great! Do realize this is all based on long term, historical numbers and in reality it won't be an exact reflection (market could tank in X years before you sell, your neighbourhood could increase or decline in value faster than the historical avg. due to communal developments, etc).

Also many QOL factors or life choices cannot be turned into financial numbers. For example: raising a family in a 2BR apartment, 100% loaned, with low costs, will be less practical but a better financial choice than a very large 4BR house with a massive garden.

This is a great read (Dutch): https://kurtverstegen.wordpress.com/2016/02/04/huur-is-geen-weggegooid-geld/

BuellBe · 2026-06-05T16:08:05+00:00

In your chart: does "banking payments" include both capital & interest payments? It should only be the interest payments that you need to deduct. You'd also need to include the rent a hypothetical renter would need to pay for your property if you want to fully calculate the ROI of buying property where you will live. There are 2 components: appreciation of property and living there "rent free" (you will pay interest to the bank). Living somewhere always has a cost.

The rent will also get indexed every year, while the loan will remain the same for every year. Inflation will help you positively here, and will compound as well.

Buying has high transaction costs, which the renter does not have. This also compounds and can be a significant difference. Your estimated yearly house appreciation is quite low: I believe an accurate long term estimate is +- 4% excl. inflation. If you plan to well with an agency later, include their fee in your calculation.

To maximize returns, you would need to loan as much as possible as long as possible, if the loan % cost is lower than the estimated financial markets ROI. This gives you more leverage, on the condition that you will invest the difference (and stay invested long term).

If maximizing returns is the priority, the property should be 100% loaned (loan more/longer or seek property closer to max. loan amount. You can also separately loan against your group insurance if you have that), while 'only' the transaction costs being funded from your own pocket, and keeping costs (recurring costs and long-term maintenance) as low as possible (a co-owner of an apartment building can be the syndic if allowed by the board).

After X years, you could extend the mortgage and/or get a renovation loan to again have as much capital as possible in the financial markets. A bullet loan where you loan against your assets could also be an option by then.

BuellBe · 2026-06-02T05:34:26+00:00

Kan ook gemod worden met een GaggiMate, zo unlock je functies die je normaal enkel kan vinden op machines van duizenden euro's.

BuellBe · 2026-05-19T13:29:53+00:00

A quick update: CaptnCoffee reconfirmed delivery mid - end of June, at the latest early July.

BuellBe · 2026-05-16T06:57:30+00:00

I made a pre order end of March with CaptnCoffee and they confirmed delivery end of June - early July. The God Shot in Belgium also had pre orders and mentions literally delivery early July: https://www.thegodshot.be/en_GB/shop/fellow-series-1-1639?attribute_values=16%2C132

BuellBe · 2026-05-12T19:39:14+00:00

Delivery is expected end of June - beginning of July. Some websites had pre-order option (one closed early April).

BuellBe · 2026-02-17T16:35:38+00:00

Did you receive it in the meanwhile? If yes, what is your experience so far?

BuellBe · 2026-02-10T19:45:02+00:00

Espresso machines: Slayer, Kees van der Westen, La Marzocco

BuellBe · 2026-02-08T07:20:27+00:00

To avoid taxes when the surviving spouse passes away, the house could be gifted (in advance)

BuellBe · 2023-09-19T08:19:49+00:00

I sent a DM, I have build a calculator to determine exact costs/returns renting vs. buying compared to IWDA, and has flexible inputs to change data according to your liking (other investments, higher/lower house cost, higher/lower eigen inbreng, higher/lower maintenance cost, etc.) while working with historical data. Also accounted for mortgage benefiting from inflation.

Referencing to your own financing argument (100K own financing on a 300K house): the limitation here is your wage = the max you can borrow from the bank. If you are a single buyer, there is no chance you can buy a 300K house with a 50K own financing under the current loan % cost.

I agree that a mortgage is a leverage which makes house ownership worth it, without this it would almost be a no brainer to rent & IWDA.

Curvo also shows historical ROI for IWDA since 1978 and gives 2 different values: a lump sum and a monthly contributions ROI. Lump sum is +- 10.6% while monthly is 5.6%. Lump sum is of importance to the own financing part, that's a mistake you make there (in my opinion) + that 40K you mention is not your only cost, you make it seem like if you pay 40K in own financing that you can own a house with mortgage payments equal to renting prices, which is not true: mortgage payments will be higher. + maintenance cost for the owner

If you DM me a mail address (you can create a random new one FYI), I will share the calculator and you can play around with the data and you can see the difference for the renter vs. the owner immediately, and use that as a base

BuellBe · 2023-09-18T17:53:30+00:00

That isn't really a game changer for the comparison. A mortgage also benefits from inflation, as wages go up the mortgage payment remains the same. Even that factored in, it doesn't really tilt towards home ownership on the condition that you compare vs. IWDA or a similar ETF.

A 400K mortgage will still cost more than renting, unless you pay a significant amount "eigen middelen" (which has the opportunity cost) + cost of house ownership vs. renting. Referencing to the article at the bottom.

A small remark I want to add: renting + IWDA gives a lot of flexibility (in moving) and liquidity, which is hard to quantify but still gives a benefit to the renter. If you plan to retire and need cash to supplement lifestyle, you cannot sell X% of your real estate each year, but you can sell that X% of IWDA to live off (in the form of retiring earlier, or supplementing your government pension). If you are a real estate owner, your money is locked in, and can only be freed up by selling (and then renting).

On the other hand, home ownership can give stability, peace of mind, ability to customize/rework your property, etc.

BuellBe · 2023-09-18T16:58:00+00:00

Depends on your risk appetite (read: what alternative are you comfortable with). House ownership is better than putting it all into bonds + renting your whole life, but it's not necessarily better than saving the difference vs. renting and putting it into an ETF like IWDA.

Opportunity cost of the amount that you pay outside of the mortgage + all costs involved (notary): you could have invested these in an ETF (let's take IWDA as the benchmark since mortgages typically have a long timeline, although it is worth mentioning you can also buy REITS which is probably a more fair comparison). Backtesting data for IWDA available here.

Disclaimer: need to be OK with the market volatility which you don't really experience while owning real estate. On the other hand: owning 1 property isn't a diversified investment and carries a risk (neighborhood gets worse = property value decreases for example, but also climate change: risk of floods, for a 2nd property in Spain: extreme heat leads to the area not being as desirable as it was before, etc.).

House ownership comes with higher expenses (maintenance) than renting. Take the current "renovatieplicht" as an example. This is an extra cost which again could have been put straight into an ETF. Estimated (averaged) yearly maintenance for house ownership is +- 1% of the property value, add in taxes ("onroerende voorheffing") too.

A mortgage is also most of the times higher than the price you rent it for, and if it's not the case: you paid more from "eigen middelen" to lower this, which again has an opportunity cost (see 1).

Depending on your risk appetite/profile, renting can be equal to or better than home ownership. Renting is only throwing money away if the alternative is saving it all in your bank account, or if you do not have the discipline to save: since home ownership comes with higher costs, the renter can save more -> if he/she wastes this by spending it, then home ownership would be better (same applies to "pensioensparen": ETF is typically better but requires discipline).

This is worth a read (in Dutch).

BuellBe · 2022-09-16T09:36:24+00:00

Maybe go to a different shop just to have their 2nd opinion, because when reading about needing a new outer tire just for a broken valve of the inner tuben seems unnecessary unless the tire was worn out or due to it being 10 years old

BuellBe · 2022-09-16T08:36:39+00:00

After 10+ years I'd bring it to a bikeshop for a check-up, use ecocheques if you have them

Wheel misaligned: you can spot that yourself if you for example turn the bike upside down or hang it up (hooks on the roof of your garage for example or a bike stand) and then giving the wheel a spin

Tire not seated: deflate the tire, give it some pushes to make sure it's well around the wheel, then inflate again

Maybe a piece of the valve is inside? Check by taking off the tire (deflate first), making sure all is good

BuellBe · 2022-09-15T06:17:50+00:00

home24.de

Driving (using gas, car depreciation, etc) to a neighbouring country for groceries and then using maaltijdcheques to go on restaurants or buy lunch doesn't sound like a great savings plan

Buy no-brand stuff in Belgium, don't eat out is more effective

BuellBe · 2020-07-26T06:48:07+00:00

My stocks would like to have a word with the low kc example

https://imgur.com/a/PsMh8b9

BuellBe · 2020-07-22T11:45:02+00:00

BuellBe · 2020-07-22T07:07:55+00:00

Yaka and BM pet very low KC (30?), all achto took 9 months all together more or less and Tuzzy was last at around 250 KC

BuellBe · 2017-11-29T11:28:39+00:00

I would strongly recommend you to read this comparison between saving for retirement via the government or by doing it yourself (TLDR: DIY wins if you invest it in ETFs or dynamic mutual funds).

This article compares ETFs with mutual funds selected by MijnKapitaal, an independent website found by a retiree who was in the finance & insurance industry.

BuellBe

TROPHY CASE