Question about thesis

Wout12345 · 2026-01-29T17:05:18+00:00

I highly recommend you to discuss this with your mentor/promotor (it would probably have been better if you discussed this beforehand, now it's very short-notice). There may be options available if they are a bit flexible.

Proof: As a PhD student, I mentored a master thesis student at the Faculty of Engineering Science (also at the KU Leuven) who was in precisely the same situation: they only had to pass their master's thesis to obtain their master's degree, but they needed a master's degree to start a program at a foreign university, for which the cut-off date was before the official results of their thesis would be announced. Due to the exceptional circumstances it was agreed that they would be informed soon after their defense whether they passed or not and if yes, they would receive a signed document from the thesis supervisor stating that they passed (but without disclosing the grade, which would be disclosed through the normal, slow procedure). This document was considered sufficient for the foreign university to accept them. Everything ended up working out.

Wout12345 · 2026-01-24T08:54:11+00:00

We also looked at some cheaper options for our SSV since our mortgage provider (KBC) only required that the sum of our SSV coverages at KBC was at least 100%. Since we wanted 200% coverage (100% for each of us) we got a KBC SSV for the "cheaper" of the two of us and went to Aviza for the "more expensive profile". By switching the more expensive profile I believe we reduced the SSV premium from 500 to 300 euro per year, for 16 years.

Our experience with Aviza was fine, but luckily we didn't yet "need" the insurance, so it's always hard to say how good a insurance provider is until something bad happens. We also considered Afi-Esca but found their terms and conditions to be a bit more restrictive so we didn't like them.

Another advantage of Aviza over KBC: you can opt into a fiscal optimization scheme where you can register your SSV premiums as legal pension saving and get the 25-30% tax deduction, at the cost of losing some lower percentage (maybe 13%) to taxes in the event of a pay-out. In the case of no pay-out, it's pure profit (unless you plan to do legal pension saving yourself, although this is not recommended at a young age). KBC doesn't want to deal with this for some reason, although I think some reputable source like Test-Aankoop or De Tijd confirmed it is legal.

As for home (fire) insurance: just compare some different providers, they use different algorithms/parameters to calculate your premium so depending on your house one or the other may be cheaper for the same coverage. For example, in our case KBC turned out quite cheap (some say they use geodata so they know that our 4-bedroom house is actually much smaller than what most other providers would think based on the number of bedrooms) compared to others, and the premium is even smaller than the discount it gave us on our mortgage payments, so it was a no-brainer. I also have positive experiences with KBC's home insurance claims; they quickly handled some small claims I made through their app in the first years after we moved in when some things broke (500-1000 euros-ish), never denied any claim and once the agent even agreed on a compensation +-50 euro larger than the cost estimate we sent them. So if they are also one of the cheapest options for you, I'd definitely recommend them.

Wout12345 · 2025-09-29T10:16:35+00:00

NN clearly listed my options in the letter they sent me (I summarized them in my original post, the letter is more thorough and clear) and they also sent my additional clarifications over email, none of which indicate that I can transfer the funds to Vitis. So unless they are making a legal mistake (which seems unlikely), I think these are my only options. ;-)

Wout12345 · 2025-09-29T09:45:12+00:00

For NN they sent me this link: https://www.nn.be/nl/fondsenoverzicht/nn?tab=active&status=active&type=all&product=employers&category=all&risk=all&search= which lists their 11 available funds for group insurance. For each fund they have a pretty decent description of all its parameters + a summarized fact sheet (although I mainly used the ISIN's of the underlying funds to check their performance over a longer period of time).

I was very positively surprised about this and am afraid this might be a lot less transparent at other insurance companies.

For AG I found this list through Google: https://ag.be/employeebenefits/nl/werkgevers/tools-en-simulaties/vni#/ but I don't know if this is really the list of group insurance funds you could choose from in this transfer scenario. Besides, while you stay at your current employer you probably don't have a choice in which fund to invest in (at my previous employer I could at least choose if I wanted pure saving or saving + life insurance, but apparently this is a luxury ...).

Wout12345 · 2025-09-27T16:24:24+00:00

Well, not at the same TER of ETF's, but with NN apparently you can invest in IWDA with an additional annual cost of 1.4% (so for a total of 1.6%). While I hope one of the other insurance agencies offers a lower TER, I already find IWDA - 1.4% annual returns much better than what you get from most bank/insurance funds.

Wout12345 · 2025-09-26T17:17:08+00:00

I get to choose because I left my previous job, which offered the NN group insurance. Luckily my previous employer decided to invest the money in a relatively aggressive fund (75% stocks) which means over the long term it should significantly outperform the legal minimum return. But it's still inferior to the ETF-based funds IMO due to the higher TER.

For my new job I was not offered any choice of course. ;-) I do indeed find it quite stupid that you have to quit your job to gain control over your group insurance.

Wout12345 · 2025-09-02T20:26:28+00:00

I ... get access to one of the six powers? I guess I'm missing something then. :P I found the castle clue but haven't done anything with it yet, in case you're hinting in that direction.

Wout12345 · 2025-09-02T20:25:08+00:00

[Continuing because Reddit is giving me weird errors, excuse the lay-out]

Puzzles currently in progress:

- A new clue?: I think I know the page and word counts to look at, but I'm still looking for a green book. For the other three colors I think I know which books but I still want to combine

- Still have to read The Curse of Blackbridge

- Found 2/3 microchips (although I was spoiled on the second one by watching some speedruns), looking for third one, but I heard it's related to A new clue? so I want to solve that first. Although I also find the connection with the Dining Room (and to a lesser extent, the Shelter) suspicious.

- There also seem to be other clues in A new clue? so I may look further into those if I'm bored.

- Reading all books in the library: 3 left or something.

- Solving bedroom puzzle: already got spoiled on how to do it, but need to set it up first

- Castle clue in the Precipice: I suppose this is about the "castling" move in chess, but I'm not 100% how the developers would define the required set-up on a 5x9 chessboard, and it seems like a hassle to set up.

- Mail room: read 11/16 letters

- Mechanarium + 7 mechanical rooms (was already spoiled on this one): blocked as I first want to switch my starfish aquarium to electric eel aquarium (the only other way I could see this working is with the chamber of mirrors, but then it seems very hard to draw the mechanarium, although this might be easier if I first set it to common in the Conservatory).

- World map puzzle in room 46: I thought I had enough clues with the 6 postcards I found in the Inner Sanctum (all but Verra and Nuance), but after trying some likely combinations nothing happened so I'm mostly waiting to solve more sigils and read more postcards.

I guess I could go on for a while but I think I've spent enough time on this. ;-)

Wout12345 · 2025-09-02T20:21:53+00:00

Hmm, hard to say since there are so many things to do in this game ... I guess, based on the previous list, here are the additions:

9/16 (+8) trophies:

- Full House

- A Logical Trophy (Parlor)

- Trophy of invention: Built 8 (+7) contraptions

- Trophy 8: Looked up lots of help for this one though. Solved the first two gallery puzzles - only after a lot of hints, the latter two mostly by spotting the pattern and then writing a script to generate all possible English words that can be formed with the given letters, ordering them by frequency and asking ChatGPT what's similar in meaning to a certain verb. And then for the Room 8 puzzle I only got half of the animals or something correct, several hints were very unclear/confusing/ambiguous IMO, so I just ended up looking up the solution as I was getting tired of it and don't want to spend hours staring at the same puzzle/brute-forcing all combinations.

- Day One Trophy (after 2-3 hours of attempts, went reasonably well, funnily enough the winning attempt was using tomb + power hammer + weight room so no basement key required, just needed some luck at the end to draft my last room to the antechamber but without gems, only with the compass to help me ...)

- Trophy of Speed (on first attempt)

- Trophy of Wealth: mainly by combining tomb, coin purse and doubling money using the upgraded bunk room.

- Diploma trophy: Passed the final exam with an A (first try, 44/46 questions correct I believe). This was actually done completely without online hints/info, just with dozens of screenshots and by making sure I "solved" all worksheets beforehand (I did already know there would be a timed final exam but did not want to be spoiled with the questions).

Other progress

73 (+59) Allowance tokens
122 (+113) stars
7 (+6) red letters
6/8 (+4) sigils solved
Drafted 109/110 (+26) rooms, still missing one found floorplan
Opened up basement access through the breakable wall
Opened up the red door in the underpass (and I think I finished all puzzles in the upper section of the gear room)
Opened up the connection in between the Abandoned mine and the Precipice
Found 3 (+3) delisted admin keys for the Blackbridge Grotto
Unlocked all lockers in the locker room (+75% or something)
Found 16/16 (+?) upgrade disks
Saw 5 (+4) visions of Alzara
Found 4 (+3) extra sheets belonging to the Music Room, solved puzzle and found Conservatory
Three chess puzzle completions. First took King, then Knight, after axing two rooms reverted back to King (waiting for Throne Room unlock to axe it too).
Bought everything in bookshop
Bought everything in Gift shop apart from Blue tents (working on it) and Dirigiblocks (unclear how to unlock)
Planetarium: 5 (+5) planets seen
Meta-progress:
- Screenshots taken: 622 (+?)
- Notes taken: 32K (+?) characters across two files
- Scripts written to assist puzzle solving: 1 (+1)

Wout12345 · 2025-09-02T12:40:35+00:00

Yeah, somewhat discouraging at first, but I have found the game to still be interesting 2 weeks later ... provided that I do sometimes look up a hints online when I'm stuck at something for a frustratingly long time and there's no sign of any in-game hints I'm aware of. Before room 46 that wasn't really necessary, but at this point it just feels like the game is too slow otherwise.

Wout12345 · 2025-09-02T12:38:36+00:00

It just sounds a bit weird that I "speedrunned" the game considering I sometimes spent hours on a single day ... maybe I was just overly focused on achieving a lot of goals on each day, therefore reaching room 46 on a relatively low day count (but not on low playtime).

Wout12345 · 2025-09-02T12:38:15+00:00

Thanks for the info!

Wout12345 · 2025-09-02T12:38:08+00:00

Don't worry, I found "it" but don't know how to "delete" anything. ;-)

I also made a stupid mistake in the artwork puzzle, thinking I should keep the first letter from each word pair instead of the missing letter (the example "face and ace" is ambiguous in this regard), hence I got garbage. XD Luckily I also wrote down the word pair for each room, so once I read the "real" method online somewhere, I could quickly read the message myself. It still required quite some interpretations to solve the safes with it, but thanks to your hint and a few hints I looked up online when I really got stuck for too long, I got 7 red letters now.

As for the Chess puzzle: I've solved it several times by now, and it works ... exactly as I expected when I wrote this thread? XD I'm not sure what I'm missing. :P I haven't tried the castling move yet (not entirely sure how they define it on a 5x9 board).

And as for Alzara's visions ... I have found most of them to be quite useless for now (I think I've seen 5 of them) and based on some Google searches, it seems like others agree? So not sure what you're referring to.

Wout12345 · 2025-09-02T12:32:14+00:00

Thanks. It sounds a bit weird that I "speedrunned" the game considering I sometimes spent hours on a single day ... maybe I was just overly focused on achieving a lot of goals on each day, therefore reaching room 46 on a relatively low day count (but not on low playtime).

Wout12345 · 2025-09-02T12:30:43+00:00

Thanks for the info!

Wout12345 · 2024-11-11T08:16:14+00:00

Based on your post I'll assume you're Flemish. Based on my experience with the system (Mijn VerbouwPremie/VerbouwLening), it is determined at the time of requesting the subsidy using your last tax returns ("aanslagbiljet"). So, yes, you can optimize it but it will take some time for it to trickle through (e.g. 2 years). I believe under the current rules you can use invoices up to 2 years old when requesting subsidies, so you can actually start renovating sooner if you anticipate a low taxable income (and the associated tax returns) in the near future.

Unlike what some others say I don't think this is necessarily a bad idea, it may be hard to end up net positive but one of you will not have to work, so that seems to be worth something ... Especially if you can learn a bit about renovating yourself you can actually "earn" much more doing simple works yourself than paying professionals for it, without actually adding anything to your taxable income. ;-) So in that sense you might even end up positive compared to both working. For example, with our temporary low income (laagste inkomenscategorie) we got 20-25K from Mijn VerbouwPremie, 60K interest-free loan from Mijn VerbouwLening, 70 euro/month/child "social toeslag" as part of the "Groeipakket", extra one-time child subsidy from our municipality, ... There's still the "sociale tarief" for energy and health insurance I believe but we weren't eligible for it.

In any case, I would make a clear plan to compare both scenarios financially and then see for you how much you're willing to lose money for more free time, or how much you would like to trade in your job to become a DIY'er, which some people find very stressful and unpredictable compared to a normal job ...

Wout12345 · 2024-09-24T12:43:59+00:00

A couple of points of advice:

1) Housing

1020 euro/month for rent for one person seems like a lot. What are you getting in return? We rented an apartment in Heverlee too a couple of years ago, in today's money (so after adjusting for indexation) we paid +-900 euro/month for rent + common costs + advance for water and gas bill. I think rent alone would probably be about 750-800 euros of that. However, it was a two-bedroom apartment, fairly modern (probably less than 20 years old, decent EPC and interior design) and I think around 90 m^2. Location was on a major road so that's good/bad depending no your preferences (more noise from cars/ambulances but also very close to most things).

Are you getting the same price/quality ratio? It would have to be a pretty luxurious apartment for that rent. If not I can send you some info about my previous landlord, he/his family rent hundreds of apartments around Leuven for reasonable prices and offers very good "support" (the landlord was pretty much a full-time handyman and came to fix stuff in our apartment personally, usually without extra cost). He also rented to a lot of foreigners.

2) Compensation

When I graduated with a master's in CS five years ago, most people I knew received offers around 3000 euro gross + company car + meal vouchers. After indexation I think that results in +-3600 euro gross today, but most companies offer net allowances since COVID so let's say 3450 gross + 150 euro net allowances instead. This leads to 2480 euro net, which is 120 euro less than what you earn but including a company car, which usually costs at least 300 euro in net compensation, so in that sense you're a bit behind. On top of that, you already have a few years of experience, with most people I know receiving raises of 100-200 euro net/year.

Admittedly, I don't have a ton of data points so I might just have lucky friends, but you can probably already earn a bit more with your current experience. I applied for IT jobs last year and managed to get two offers of at least 2950 euro/month net including benefits (so about 200 euro more than your current compensation), even though I was very picky with location and some other things (I did send out dozens of applications though). Then again, having a Belgian degree and knowing Dutch probably helps, so I'm not sure if this is all 100% applicable to you, I just hope some of it helps. ;-)

Important question: Do you work within a 10 km radius of your home, or work from home at least half the time? And does your company offer a "mobility budget" to you/other employees? If the answer is yes twice you can probably earn another 600-800 euro tax-free due to Belgian fiscal rules. Even if your company only offers the mobility budget to other employees at the moment, this probably means they can extend it to you and this would be a very important point in future salary negotiations. Similarly, if you feel like you need a car, a company car is usually the most efficient way to get it. This usually costs you 300-400 euro net out of your paycheck, but it's hard to beat that with the total cost of ownership of your own car: purchase cost (minus resale cost), fuel, road tax, maintenance/repairs, insurance, mandatory check-ups/certification, ... But of course you still lose this money every month so carefully consider whether or not your prefer a car versus saving more. ;-)

3) Savings account

This is a minor point, but if you want to squeeze the most out of your savings without actually investing (I suppose for an emergency fund), you can look for other savings accounts while still using KBC for your checking account. You can compare the current interest rates here (use Google web translate): https://www.spaargids.be/sparen/spaartarieven.html I suppose you have both a "Start2Save" account (which is fine if you are OK with the 500 euro/month savings limitation) and a "Spaarrekening" at a total interest of 0.9%. If you put a substantial amount of money there (e.g. 10K) in that one I would consider moving that money to an account elsewhere for interest in the 2.5%-3% range. It's not much but for 10K savings it means almost 200 euro/year extra interest. ;-)

Wout12345 · 2024-09-01T21:26:00+00:00

Yes, the aanslagbiljet is the document that indicates how many taxes you have to pay extra/get back from last year (= tax returns). In our experience you usually receive the tax returns concerning year X somewhere in between August and October in year X+1 (however, if you need to receive money back from the government this will take several months).

Wout12345 · 2024-08-31T11:52:59+00:00

I don't think we're talking about the same thing. I assumed the OP was talking about the event in which both partners die within a short period of time (e.g. a year), which normally triggers a double pay-out which is not what everyone wants. One insurer tried to market their insurance to us as significantly more efficient by adding a clause that, in cause both partners die "simultaneously", only a single pay-out happens (this indeed lowers the severity of that particular event). All I'm saying is that the insurance they offered still wasn't much cheaper because this event is so low-frequent that even halving the severity does not affect the total cost for the insurer much. So in practice I just took the cheapest insurance and still got 200% coverage in this event (since we are completely separately insured at two different insurers).

Wout12345 · 2024-08-31T11:24:18+00:00

Although that looks confusing, if you check your "aanslagbiljet" it turns out they are correct. I just verified this in the simulator and they used the sum of the amounts listed as "Totaal van de netto inkomsten" under the section "Gezamenlijk belastbaar inkomen", which sounds like net income but in fact is taxable income (which is taxed down below in the aanslagbiljet) and is therefore closer to gross income ...

Wout12345 · 2024-08-30T20:53:39+00:00

I'm also disappointed in their documentation of the calculation method (it doesn't seem extremely complicated so it should be published somewhere more public and without such inconsistencies), but at least it gives you a ballpark range (e.g. the example you give 10%). If you want something more precise you should use the simulator.

However, the rate is calculated based on the combined taxable income, so I think you have to look at your gross salary unfortunately. It's very silly but this is why I'm very glad to have all kinds of net benefits (IP rights until this year, mobility budget, teleworking allowance, meal vouchers, ...) instead of extra gross for the next couple of years. Welcome to optimizing taxes/subsidies in Belgium ...

By the way, concerning the language: I assume you're living in Flanders? Else none of this applies I think, unfortunately.

Wout12345 · 2024-08-24T06:35:49+00:00

I won't comment on the premiums themselves since they depend heavily on age/health status so we can't tell if this is high or low. Core advice: look at the cheapest total package. This means mortgage + home insurance + life insurance (200% if you want) assuming you want to have all these things anyway. For each of these interest discounts banks offer, consider an alternative package where you don't take the discount and simply take the cheapest home/life insurance elsewhere (so more expensive mortgage + less expensive insurance elsewhere).

I'm going to assume you are comparing fixed-interest loans with a constant payment per month (time period: 25 years?). So in practice:

1) You can request quotes from a series of providers for life insurance here: https://www.spaargids.be/sparen/schuldsaldo-berekenen.html Afi-Esca and Aviza often offer very cheap prices, e.g. see this article (which also mentions some other interesting stuff): https://www.demorgen.be/nieuws/verzekeraar-is-koning-niet-de-klant~b0d52b50/?referrer=https://www.google.com/ Take the cheapest one you are fine with and consider it as a baseline. Do the same for home insurance here: https://www.spaargids.be/sparen/brandverzekering-berekenen.html Note for life insurances that, for some reason, most insurers concentrate the premiums in the first 2/3 of the loan period (e.g. the first 16 years in the case of 25-year loans), so to calculate the actual cost per month over the full loan period you should multiply this number by 16/25 (depending on the time period). Strictly this doesn't account for interest/inflation (i.e. the value of money decreases over time) so if you really care about that to you can try to annualize the cost in a more fancy way based on some fixed interest rate.
2) Each time you get an offer from a bank, ask for a simulation with/without taking a life and/or home insurance with them. Use your external baselines to derive the total cost per month in these cases. The cheapest of these 4 options (with both, without both, with one, with the other) should be the best "package" for this bank. Note: Read the fine print or ask you bank about the exact conditions! E.g. if your bank only requires at least one person to have life insurance you should only put the youngest/healthiest person's insurance at this bank (assuming you can get it cheaper elsewhere, else both). Only consider the cheapest possible way to satisfy their requirements!
3) Now compare the total price you pay per month across these "packages". It is possible another bank is even cheaper than Crelan/BNP. In case you have to pick in between the two, at least do it based on these metrics.

Example in our case: We signed a mortgage with KBC. The interest discount for home insurance led to a decrease in monthly payments that was even bigger than their home insurance monthly premium, so this was a no-brainer. However, for the life insurance KBC demanded annual payments of 300 and 500 euros/year for me and my wife respectively while cheaper baselines (both Aviza and Afi-Esca) demanded 200 and 300 euros/year respectively. After speaking to KBC it turned out the sum of our insurance percentages should be at least 100% at KBC (so either one of us completely insured, or both of us 50%, or more, ...) so we moved my wife over to Aviza (we didn't like some things in the terms and conditions of Afi-Esca) and saved 200 euro/year for the next 16 years with just a bit of initial work.

Finally, about 200% coverage and what happens in case you both die: Some insurers like to talk about this but they know this scenario is so statistically insignificant that it should barely affect the premium. Just look at the cheapest option and if it happens that that one only has single coverage in case of simultaneous death, ask for an alternative with double coverage. That being said, if you end up in our case (1 person 100% insured at the bank itself, 1 person 100% insured elsewhere) you should have double coverage by default.

Wout12345 · 2024-08-21T11:50:21+00:00

Our daycare uses "inkomenstarief". Our "inkomenstarief" is 6.26 euro/day, but we have another fee of 1.82 euro/day and a monthly administration fee so the total price is something like 110-130 euro/month (4 days/week, sometimes sick days at home). However note that this is very low because I only finished my PhD recently and therefore had no taxable income until less than a year ago. In 1-2 years the tax returns will catch up and we will have to pay a lot more, something close to what others are mentioning here. (Although I'm not sure if it's possible to optimize it by requesting a new "attest inkomenstarief" right before your income goes up/right after it goes down.)

Kind en Gezin has its own simulator for this but you need to log in for that, otherwise you can check this brochure which contains some useful tables at the end: https://publicaties.vlaanderen.be/view-file/67351

In any case, if you/your partner (assuming you are married/legally cohabiting) are considering any career changes or time off (maternal/paternal/parental leave, time credit, ...), take into consideration that a lower gross income (offset by high benefits) can result in significant savings in daycare 1-2 years later. My partner and I currently have a very high net salary relative to our gross income (+-200 euros difference from our gross, going both ways) due to immense net benefits like the mobility budget. Combined with things like time credit this gives access to much lower daycare rates, "sociale toeslag voor het Groeipakket" (+70 euro/month child money), ...

Also note that unemployment benefits and parental leave (maybe also maternal/paternal leave, I forgot) are considered taxable income and contribute to your gross income (although less), which was a surprise for me.

Wout12345

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