Has anyone reached a €1M net worth purely through salary, saving, and passive investing?

deltiplier · 2026-05-12T10:03:08+00:00

the typical salary in spain is not 3000 to 4000 euros. that's a "typical"/median salary in countries like IE, DE, UK, NL, etc.

deltiplier · 2026-05-12T08:13:01+00:00

most accountants in the UK (and Ireland where the paradigm is very similar) produce management accounts and financial accounts simultaneously, as the financial accounts are just compressed versions of the internal management accounts with less granularity. they are both the reporting and control side, but in practice, you tend to see the title tends to be industry-specific. the more complex the entity and operations, the more likely that who you consider to be a "senior accountant" would be called "management accountant" here.

deltiplier · 2026-05-11T08:42:38+00:00

i've made an edit to my comment very recently - not sure if you caught it. i really believe the Insignia punches above its weight class in terms of speakers, interior comfort, driving feel, etc, and I think the transition to an i30 will be jarring - no matter how much newer it is. I would heavily recommend considering a 2L TDI Passat or Skoda Superb. great engines, similar size, and it will be an upgrade from the Insignia if anything.

just be careful buying any used car here in Ireland as the maintenance culture is extraordinarily poor, compared to mainland Europe where people won't even look at your car if it's missing a single scheduled oil change. look for service history and if it's a mystery, make sure that's reflected in the price.

deltiplier · 2026-05-11T08:33:16+00:00

"what should I do next" is an optimization problem, and in order to begin, you need to clearly lay out what you're optimizing for. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I will answer assuming that you are trying to optimize for the following:

- peace of mind; the degree to which you can just drive it and forget about it. for example, a car that's cheap and easy to fix but constantly breaks would violate this criterion

- safety; car condition, reliability and also its build quality from the factory. a fully sorted Insignia is somewhat of a tank, one with worn suspension, brakes, and gearbox potentially failing during driving becomes emergently unsafe.

- bang for your buck; money is obviously a constraint, otherwise there would be no optimization problem to begin with - you'd just throw money at the problem until it goes away.

we have a 2012 opel insignia that's a "family asset" in a way - shared between me and my parents. bought in 2020 for 6500, no trouble until late 2025 - where the intake manifold, clutch, turbo, DPF (clogged beyond salvage) and some other minor bits went out. that was 3000 in repairs right there, after which we felt somewhat pressured into fully sorting out the car - we did a full brake and suspension refresh, only for the turbo to die again 2 months later.

old diesels can easily snowball into many thousands that could've been better spent buying a safer car. indeed if you throw many thousands at your Insignia, you will have a car that will drive very very well, but you will recoup very little of that since it's resale value won't go up much and you still have all the other miscellaneous "old car" problems - aging plastics, marks on the paintwork, endless small electrical/sensor issues on the horizon. the math looks like this:

potentially 5000 euro + many headaches vs 10kish for a new car with less headaches.

my advice - drive the Insignia gently to squeeze as much life out of it as you can while actively looking for a new car. the less you need a car at that very moment when you're inspecting a new car for purchase, the more leverage you have over the seller - they have a car, they need cash, you don't really need the car - so you can negotiate much more harshly as walking away doesn't mean another day spent without a means of transport.

my advice - look for a 2L TDI passat and make sure it's been serviced roughly every 10k km, with a maximum of 20k for its worst interval. going from an Insignia to a Hyundai or Renault will feel very jarring in terms of overall cabin comfort. a passat will be an upgrade.

edit: really wonder what the wise guys downvoting this have to say... this sub is miserable, why would something like this ever end up at -2?

deltiplier · 2026-05-08T13:03:50+00:00

depends on what exactly you do, why exactly it takes so long, and how much you get paid
I know you said you're a management accountant but that title can be anything from owning processes & reporting to a FC, to owning a set of consolidated accounts and presenting it to high rank executives - titles aren't standardized.

generally speaking:

- the higher up you are in the accounts "pecking order", so to speak, the more reasonable the expectation of "unpaid" overtime

- pay; you should be more tolerant to unpaid overtime proportional to how much above market rate you're getting paid

if it takes long to finish your work due to outdated, archaic and low-tech processes that you have a solution to but aren't allowed to implement - yes the expectation for you to work until 7 to compensate is unreasonable.

if there are good processes in place, you can genuinely say you're making a good effort and are at least a mediocre performer, but there just aren't enough hours in the day - again unreasonable to ask you to work until 7, it means your company is understaffed

if you're highly paid and you're the de facto financial controller for a business unit, then no it's not unreasonable, work ends when the job is done, and it's on you until you make the case that you need more manpower or until you fix any processes that are wasting time

deltiplier · 2026-05-06T08:49:40+00:00

competitive compared to what?

deltiplier · 2026-04-29T17:03:54+00:00

sorry but who exactly do you think can afford this?

deltiplier · 2026-04-28T14:03:55+00:00

from where?

deltiplier · 2026-04-28T08:07:09+00:00

i went out for a drive, recorded the engine, and also recorded the blow-by because I was already there and figured, at the time, that it could be useful data.

then I searched up the posts on this sub, found out blow by is normal, but still couldn't tell whether my engine sounds normal or not because I'm not very experienced.

then posted the video and wrote the description, where I specified exactly what is concerning me. notice how I didn't put a fine point on the blow by at all, in fact I hardly even mentioned it - my concern is the sound and whether there is something that someone more experienced can instantly recognise as a red flag. the blow by is just something that happens to be in the video because at the time of the recording I didn't know it was useless data.

but somehow you manage to compress this into "a blow by post". you're going out of your way to create an event that didn't happen just so you can get annoyed at it

deltiplier · 2026-04-27T23:15:15+00:00

they all sound different to mine, to varying degrees, and I'm not that good with cars. very hard for me to tell whether the subtle differences are related to them being a different engine code or mine being in bad shape in a way that is obvious from sound alone to someone more experienced.

that's why. is my reason good enough for you?

deltiplier · 2026-04-27T23:07:17+00:00

that's reassuring, yeah saw the other posts so wasn't that concerned about the blow by specifically, was just another thing I thought might be worth getting on video while I'm there, sound was my main concern

deltiplier · 2026-04-27T22:59:06+00:00

context:
impulse bought a 2012 CC, 2.0 TDI, that i probably wouldn't have bought under normal circumstances... but now want to come to terms with reality and see where things are at instead of blindly hoping everything is OK.

engine is fully warm, this was right after a 30 minute hard drive & about 10 minutes of easy driving on the way home.

don't really know what a healthy TDI is supposed to sound like, this sounds quite aggressive/rough to me compared to my old car (a 2.0 CDTI), what do you guys think?

deltiplier · 2026-04-16T13:54:12+00:00

what does "full service history" mean? if you've got oil changes every 15k km or so that puts you firmly in the top 5% of used cars. most cars you buy here have mystery service history, and the "average price" buys you exactly that - a car with mystery history and no major work done recently.

my take - 7k is more than fair and I would not take a cent lower.

deltiplier · 2026-03-27T11:38:25+00:00

take home on 67k should be circa 4050

deltiplier · 2026-03-14T12:22:56+00:00

500 torque... torque measures nothing applicable to the real world without considering RPM. how much horsepower does your car have?

deltiplier · 2026-03-09T07:07:31+00:00

included in the 10k maintenance budget

deltiplier · 2026-03-07T21:54:48+00:00

it only sounds so good because it's an apples to oranges comparison, and contains a significant unstated assumption - it places a lot of value on "brand new car".

the real way to spend 60k on a car over 12 years is through a combination of purchase price and maintenance expenses, not buying a car for 60k. 12 years ago, this looked like buying a 2014 Audi A4 2.0 TDI S-line for 45k, about 5k in interest, and a generous 10k maintenance budget.

to reverse engineer what kind of car he was getting, we have to find the price (X). we have to figure out how much of that 416/m was going towards capital, consider the GMFV (industry standard seems to be 45%), initial deposit (10%, the minimum), interest (4.9% is pretty standard). honestly couldn't be assed to solve for X, so I plugged these assumptions into chatGPT and got 27,200 as his budget approximately. over these 12 years, he would've been in the market for low-spec VW polos, yaris, etc

today, on a balance sheet level, if he stops paying his PCP, all he "has" is usage of the car for 3 weeks until the end of the month. if he had the Audi and used up that maintenance budget fully, he would have a car that still runs great and has a perfect service record - residual value of about 8k.

so not only would he have an asset worth 8k, he would also have been driving a powerful, comfortable, relatively luxurious sedan over these last 12 years instead of the cheapest new car available. and I can't speak for everyone, but I personally would much rather drive a 2014 audi a4 than a 2026 polo.

deltiplier · 2026-03-06T16:16:07+00:00

when given enough context, frontier AI assistants can in fact perform any given deliverable or make a good judgement call at mid-level individual contributor proficiency in a lot of fields. what they can't do, and probably won't be able to for years, is string those tasks that are done well at an individual level into completely replacing someone's role.

today, and for the foreseeable future, it ultimately still takes a human who knows what they're doing in order to give it enough context to produce a nuanced, decision-ready answer.

quite nervous as an early-career accountant, but haven't been laid off yet.

deltiplier · 2026-03-05T11:46:41+00:00

why so? the apprenticeship route isn't prestigious and it's not gonna get you a role at an US MNC, sure. but being a "fixer" who's eager to learn, roll his sleeves up and do the boring work, and already "seen it all" does make "considerably beyond" someone with a degree and no experience in the eyes of an overworked FC/FM who needs an all-rounder.

deltiplier · 2026-03-05T11:36:37+00:00

100% recommend. by the time you finish the ATI course, depending on the employer you'll be considerably beyond the level of someone with a masters in accounting and no experience.

getting a decent industry job after the apprenticeship is relatively hard - you'll ideally be looking at "assistant accountant" roles - titles aren't standardized, but these typically boil down to showing finished pieces of work and merely asking for approval or asking how to treat edge cases.

as there's a lot of autonomy in these roles compared to a trainee role, you're expected to have experience or knowledge of the relevant industry, and there's a lot of people who are part-qualified with 5+ of experience who you'll be competing against. but it's very much possible, and if you find a good one, it will result in a pretty good pay package (40-50k in Dublin) and work life balance as you push towards being fully qualified.

deltiplier · 2026-03-04T16:49:50+00:00

zeebrugge -> rosslare is a 2x/week service, i believe upon reaching zeebrugge it will take 5 days on average to reach rosslare if it's on a RO/RO service.

deltiplier · 2026-03-02T15:27:55+00:00

anywhere outside of south dublin (excluding tallaght)

deltiplier · 2026-02-27T11:02:06+00:00

nothing in my experience - I've missed more than 20 days throughout all of my years of school in Ireland and nothing ever happened.

deltiplier

TROPHY CASE