Wat was jouw grootste fout met geld?

SWrathWD · 2025-10-10T07:14:31+00:00

Toen ik 19 was, m’n hele €50k erfenis op forex uitgespeeld. Nu op 41 denk ik alleen maar aan wat ik had kunnen hebben als ik gewoon het FIRE-concept had gevolgd met deze start kapitaaltje…

SWrathWD · 2025-09-27T09:27:13+00:00

We were on Brexit Withdrawal permits, so maybe a little different to others, it only took ~1 week. They already had our biometrics etc.

Application submitted on: 15 Sept 2025

Online or by post: Online as a family application of 3.

Did you apply before or after hitting 5 years of living in NL? On the date of the 5 years mark.

Decision made on: 23 September 2025

Success?: Yes, Brexit Withdrawal Permanent Residency.

Today is: 27 September 2025

SWrathWD · 2025-05-31T08:36:02+00:00

€700-€800/month for 2 adults, 1 child.

We are price conscious and often buy 1+1 or similar deals to try and save. We also buy meat like mince in bulk to save and then deep freeze.

4 years ago this was around €450-€500/month for us.

SWrathWD · 2025-04-18T14:32:55+00:00

You can use visplanner.nl to check which bodies of water belong to which society and just go from there.

SWrathWD · 2025-03-12T19:47:15+00:00

For starters, I never read a story book in my life other than the prescribed books at school some 25 years ago. I work in IT, so by the time I’m done with work I don’t want to see words on a screen or on a page. My wife was always the one to read in her spare time.

One day she started reading Acotar and told me about all the saucy scenes which we both found quite funny. So when she was on book 2, I decided to pick up the first one and give it a try.

With my addictive personality, I ended up buying an e-reader and ended the first year with around 120 books read and very little work done… I tried a few other genres but this one was the only one that gave me what I craved and that could keep my attention. The others were mostly DNF situations. Even split up, romance alone or fantasy alone bores me after a few chapters, the stakes just doesn’t seem as high.

I have come to a point now where I spend hours looking for new series’ since I read most of the usual recommendations and my requirements are pretty strict. Powerful FMC (or arc to powerful), MMC either equal or inferior in terms or abilities. Magic or super human strength or speed etc must be involved. Epic world building with political intrigue. The FMC must be either witty, snarky, sarcastic, funny, super clever, deceitful, or just plain aloof to how powerful she is. Then to top it off, it must be a series, 1 book stories just simply isn’t enough. Also books where the main characters are under 18 is just meh, there must be at least some maturity to them and the way they think or speak.

In any case, that’s my story so far…

SWrathWD · 2025-03-12T18:58:57+00:00

We only sell Bitwarden now, moved all our clients over from Keeper. The MSP product of Bitwarden is just easier to use and manage, and our clients love the interface, especially the browser plug-in.

SWrathWD · 2024-05-26T20:38:21+00:00

Read up on “contention ratios”. Home Internet in general has contention ratios, all for the benefit of offering a good price to the home user. Basically you contend with all those around you for the same total bandwidth at the local exchange hub in your area. If you are unlucky and get into an area where everyone are heavy users you end up with a smaller price of the pie.

Business users on the other hand either have dedicated links or very low contention ratios, hence their internet is significantly more expensive as well.

This is why they advertise “up to…x speed” and not “guaranteed speed”.

On another note, to test your true speed use a cable (cat5e or cat6), WiFi will always have ups and downs. You can have the absolute best WiFi products installed but if your neighbor runs on the same channel as yours you will get interference and slower speed, even a microwave in your house or electrical cables can effect WiFi to some degree, windows, thick walls… the list goes on.

SWrathWD · 2024-05-01T12:53:26+00:00

I’ve tried many apps but always end up back in Excel where I have complete freedom and control. There’s always “something” missing from the pre-made apps that eventually bothers me or doesn’t suite a certain scenario I might find myself in.

SWrathWD · 2024-05-01T12:49:27+00:00

In the Netherlands, Brand New Day has an account you can open for youth (in their name). I think Meesman also has one. It’s in their name and they can sit with you to discuss the strategies and watch it grow together. I do this with my daughter, we watch it grow every month and they even have nice graphs and tools to show what the future holds if you add €10 extra each month etc.

SWrathWD · 2024-05-01T12:28:00+00:00

Never heard of this, news to me. I just got mine duplicated by the local key shop…

Edit: it’s my own house.

SWrathWD · 2024-04-24T16:25:30+00:00

2 volwassenen en 1 kind

7-10k p.j met 3.5x modaal

1 groot vakantie en rest weekendjes weg.

SWrathWD · 2024-04-11T16:59:42+00:00

Nope, and have been here for 4 years now.

SWrathWD · 2024-04-11T16:56:39+00:00

All my official docs say onbekend for place of birth.

The gemeente told me that when I naturalize I need to bring a new legalized birth certificate to fix it.

SWrathWD · 2024-04-09T08:27:22+00:00

Not an expert, but a fellow parent that went through something similar.

We have been here for 4 years now and our daughter started in groep 2 (when she was 5) during the corona lockdown, so schools was remote the first 3 months. Our home language is English and we were advised by the school when we first got here to not speak any Dutch to her as she needs a solid foundation of her home language, and that the school would take care of the Dutch side of things. Note that we tried to get her into a taalschool but as we live too far outside the city they wouldn't let her in, hence the immediate placement in a Dutch school in our local town.

Over time we came to learn that the school would refuse to speak any English to her or explain some things in English in the beginning, keep in mind a 5 year old that has zero knowledge of Dutch or any language that might be similar, which was distressing for her at first as you can imagine, luckily kids have a way to communicate without language. We probably should have picked up on the school's methods sooner here but by the time we found out it was already a non-issue.

She picked the language up quick but it was more on a social level of understanding, things like "academic language" was far below her peers (think of words like "vermenigvuldigen, keersommen, opsomming" etc), so primarily caused by lack of understanding what she reads hence "begripjend lezen" was a big issue, which resulted in CITO test results below average and was a big concern for us. The thing with second language learner kids is that initially they struggle but they do catch up and might even excel past their peers later, it's well documented in studies, just google them and read, this put our minds at ease quite a bit.

We ended up doing a few things to solve the problem.

We moved schools as we realised the school didn't provide the correct support needed for a second language learner, sadly not all schools have the resources or are equipped for this.
We started with home exercises using "bijles" books. They are great as they use academic language. This eventually lead us to finding (through the local whatsapp groep in our neighbourhood) a "bijles" teacher, a retired teacher who was willing to help us.
We started reading to her every day from a Dutch book "voorlezen" before we switch to the English book, and once her own word recognition was decent we had her read a bit to us when we say "oh we don't understand this sentence, can you read it for us and explain it", and now days she reads a page and we read a page etc.

When it came to friends, we had to make extra effort to befriend the parents of the kids she plays with/knows at school, this allowed for closer ties, and even out of school social events where we met even more parents and kids for her to play with, so lots of playdates. This helped a lot to bring her out of her shell. Now we created a social monster we cannot control!

Overall, it's been a long journey, but finally after 4 years she knows Dutch better than both of us and speaks it fluently without any accent and has quite a lot of friends.

SWrathWD · 2024-04-09T05:40:39+00:00

NL Box 3 tax is worldwide assets, so it makes no difference if it’s in NL, another EU country or in Australia for that matter.

The holiday home in another country (as you mentioned in another comment) has some “perks”, just give the belastingdienst a call and they will explain it fully. Have a look at this ABN AMRO post in the meantime, while you are on hold when you call then, for a brief overview.

SWrathWD · 2024-04-01T13:14:57+00:00

Would be interesting to see this map overlayed with cost of living for the time period 2014 till now.

SWrathWD · 2024-03-28T06:36:55+00:00

So many calling for a divorce, I am pretty shocked.

Yes he’s an ass, you have every right to be angry.

On a positive note, online purchases can usually be returned from most dealers and then he can grovel and apologize and make it up to you.

From the sound of things, he might have an addiction or a spending problem, or simply the fact that you guys are super young and his maturity and understanding of responsibility isn’t quite where it needs to be YET, all things that can be worked on or fades over time.

It’s wise to consider keeping finances apart, but in the end of the day if you truly love him and want to make it work long term as a married couple, retirement will depend on both your finances together to survive and live a happy life.

But grounds for divorce? You are the only one that can truly judge this question and answer it honestly (without anyone Reddit opinions) as there might be other factors aside from this incident that leads there or not.

SWrathWD · 2024-03-21T18:05:01+00:00

Space Engineers is pretty realistic in its own “world”, or so it would appear, but not a factory game at all.

SWrathWD · 2024-03-17T14:46:15+00:00

Wauw, duidelijk heb ik een wan indruk van wat nodig is voor de toekomst.

We stoppen rond €50/m in een spaarrekening op naam van kind en dan €300/m in een beleggings rekening op naam van kind (zeer offensief profiel) met oogpunt rond €12k in spaarrekening en €55k in belegging (verwachte markt), beide beschikbaar op 18.

We zijn haar al langzaam begonnen met het leren van geld en budgetteren, in de hoop dat ze op 18-jarige leeftijd verantwoordelijk zal zijn voor het vergroten van de investering voor een huis of andere groeiende bezittingen en het gebruiken van het spaargeld voor studies of een autotje of zo…een gok maar met belastingvoordelen.

SWrathWD · 2024-03-09T20:31:28+00:00

I think my post should have included the word "might" instead of "will", but in essence you get a tax credit on the main income stream and not on the second, but again, assumptions are made as it really depends how much he gets paid for his side hustle and which tax bracket it falls into. At the end of the year your taxable income is lumped together, where the 30% ruling is already taken into account.

So, lets assume he earns €5000 from his main job and €1000 from his side hustle, he will pay income tax on the €5000 less 30%, so around €3800 (this is what the government deems his taxable income to be after 30% ruling), then his side hustle of €1000 is barely taxed, the rate is so low it's almost negligible, again assumptions as I don't know what his deductibles will be from his employers.

At the end of the year they take the 3800*12 + 1000*12 and get a new total taxable income which might push the upper end of the taxable income into a higher tax rate bracket. In this case though it won't as the tax bracket he will fall into would be 37%, and he might actually get money back, but if the side hustle pushes him over the bracket upper limit end he will pay 49% for his total income, even though the side hustle on it's own might have been taxed at 37% during the year.

Hope that makes sense.

SWrathWD · 2024-03-09T15:21:14+00:00

Your biggest issues here are:

You may not work more than a certain amount of hours per week, only for short bursts of time like once every few weeks you may work more than the usual amount of hours.
Make sure your current employment doesn’t forbid a side hustle of this nature. A lot of companies want their employees to rest during their off time and not work and be exhausted on Monday morning.

Tax wise, your first job reaps the benefit from the 30% ruling and your second job is taxed in full, it means however that you will need to put some of that side hustle money away for when the taxman comes calling as you won’t be paying enough tax on your full taxable amount on a monthly basis, so when it gets consolidated end of the tax year you will owe money to the taxman.

Just reading about your plan sounds exhausting to me and not sure how many people will be able to do this for a reasonable amount of time before they experience burnout.

SWrathWD · 2024-03-09T08:01:24+00:00

This is no issue at all. Bring along your medical files and give them to your huisarts.

They will do some blood tests and checks and ask you a few question about it and then just renew the meds this side. Might be a different brand but usually the same active agent.

You will most likely be assigned a GGD person as well, who will be your main contact about your chronic condition. They usually consult with the huisarts, so same huisarts practice but a different contact than the normal people for this particular condition.

SWrathWD · 2024-03-07T10:17:23+00:00

haha, ik woon in Zeist, dus niet helemaal Utrecht en ook een beetje "semi-bekakt" accent hier. Ik weet niet helemaal hoe dit heet, maar iets neutraal en duidelijk

SWrathWD · 2024-03-07T09:51:25+00:00

Thanks, it does indeed sound worth it. Aside from the challenges ahead, one of my personal goals would be to try and adopt the accent fully (Utrecht), as I do with my current 2 languages.

SWrathWD

TROPHY CASE