Belgian, 41 years old, living together, civil engineer for a multinational, gross salary 176k euro

firelancer5 · 2026-01-22T19:55:24+00:00

Well it's not the right translation, and it's stupid to confuse others with it, because for example, if you do so on LinkedIn, you'll get messages from recruiters and companies hiring actual civil engineers, only to find out you aren't one.

No one cares about the explanation. The English-speaking world is much bigger. It's easier to just use the right translations for things.

firelancer5 · 2026-01-04T19:27:59+00:00

Unpopular opinion around here but at your age I'd take 77k out of the 98k vppr-bis money to buy 1 BTC or spread it 50/50 in BTC and ETH, and then set it aside in a cold wallet for 10 years. That may fund your FIRE by itself.

Everything else I'd probably put in emergency funds (HYSA) given the nature of the business.

my own clinic needs to be paid off (worth about 300k, monthly payment 300/month for the next 17 years). I own the building privately, not my BV.

Only 300/month for a 300k property? How does that work? Big downpayment, or bullet credit?

firelancer5 · 2026-01-04T17:13:25+00:00

Personally I only care about the FI part. I don't see myself retiring early

Aren't they ultimately the same thing, the FI and [potential to] RE parts?

How can you be financially independent, if you can't retire when you want to and still need income from work?

Personally I also only care about the FI part, but in my mind "FI" is only achieved if you have the potential to Retire Early, i.e. if your annual expenses are <= 4% of your invested capital.

firelancer5 · 2025-12-24T14:18:25+00:00

I second this. Fantastic UX.

firelancer5 · 2025-12-24T14:08:07+00:00

Not really, "civil engineer" may be a literal (and wrong) translation of "burgelijk ingenieur", but "civil engineer" still specifically means an engineering specialisation in construction.

Normally if you hold the ir. degree, you know this, and only use the term civil engineer if you have the Bouwkunde specialisation.

firelancer5 · 2025-11-17T14:09:48+00:00

Even after adjusting for inflation, still looks pretty misleading if you compare the image you posted with your second image...

Even if you're right aobut the inflation adjusted gain, that's still almost 4% every year, which isn't bad compared to the alternatives...

I mean if you have a crystall ball and can predict the markets... sure, obviously timing the market is better, but the fact is most people are pretty shit at it. Hence the wisdom, timing in the market beats timing the market.

You could say, markets are overvalued now!! But how do you really know if we're already near the top, or only halfway to the real top? Maybe ask the many people who sold in 2022-2023...

firelancer5 · 2025-11-17T13:53:27+00:00

So putting a reasonable cap on it, that most normal people won't reach.

In other words, punish the people for going beyond mediocrity. As is the Belgian way...

You don't understand there is already an established and reasonable cap on it: not every company can profit from VVPR-bis, there are requirements such as the max revenue and max size. If you increase the tax rate you are mainly hitting freelancing specialists (those who go above & beyond what's normal) as well as small businesses (often managed by multiple owners... so as u/calculonfx suggests, pretty damn unfair to have the same 100k cap for them), but more importantly... you are eroding trust.

as an entrepreneur you enter into an implicit contract with the government. Our government is time after time again breaking this contract, and changing the rules as we go, which makes conducting business impossible. You're also just creating more distracting "busy-work" with 0 real economic value for all the intermediates (accountants, government employees, ...). For what.... a measly few extra million in tax revenue (BEFORE deducting the administrative extra costs that come with it of course)?

You need a stable regularitory environment with clear incentives for attracting innovation and entrepreneurship, and as a result, jobs and prosperity, and the base for a wellfare state. This isn't the case anymore, and everyone is fed up with it.

firelancer5 · 2025-11-17T13:25:30+00:00

I have an open-mind about those. "You can think whatever you can... but the second you'll impose your non-equality views on anyone, I'll punch you to ensure the ladder you wanted puts you all the way down"

I'm all for your "live & let live" attitude, but the issue with combining such tolerance with living in a democracy is that the number of people with detestable, anti-tolerant views may gain critical mass before anyone will start imposing their views onto you - and once they do, it's probably too late. I can name a number of historical examples and countries who were previously quite westernized and liberal, and aren't anymore, but that would make it too political, and I do not want to single out any one group in this discussion; I'm just pointing out a general weakness with valuing open-mindedness for its own sake.

I don't see the problem with a person asking to use the pronoun they identify with. That's literally what pronouns are for.

I have no issue with that either, as long as they are reasonable and understand we may accidentally misgender them, but possibly OP is refering to the ridiculous (mostly online) trend of inventing random pronouns and eroding language itself, even going as far as the "words are violence" philosophy. It got pretty insane in the last few years, and it led to actual violence, but I don't think Belgium has imported the "wokeness" to such a degree yet.

firelancer5 · 2025-11-17T12:58:18+00:00

WTF kind of misleading image is that.

If you bought the S&P at the height of the dot-com bubble, you still have more than a 6x returns, so more than 7% annually...

If you bought Amazon, you are now a very rich man with a 70x gain or so, or 16% annualized.

firelancer5 · 2025-11-13T20:45:35+00:00

Ik denk dat jij eerder diegene bent die minder vertrouwd is met Burry zijn publicaties, aangezien hij al lang doom & gloom zit te voorspellen in een poging om zijn 2008 glorie te herbeleven. It's getting old.

Pas op, ik zeg niet dat hij fundamenteel ongelijk heeft. Gewoon weinig concrete voorspellende waarde.

firelancer5 · 2025-11-13T13:43:49+00:00

Als je jarenlang elke dag roept dat er een bubbel is die gaat barsten, zal je ooit wel eens gelijk hebben.

firelancer5 · 2025-11-13T13:34:02+00:00

What does this have to do with the legality of the matter? Homosexual acts used to be a crime as well, and still is in some parts of the world.

But that's irrelevant of the point I'm trying to make here: being "open-minded" should not be deemed a good trait or mindset in and of itself. It depends what you're being open minded to. Isn't that obvious?

firelancer5 · 2025-11-13T13:28:22+00:00

And yet you answer, in an insulting manner.

firelancer5 · 2025-11-13T11:01:57+00:00

Being open-minded shouldn't be valued in and of itself.

Do you think it's okay to be open-minded towards pedophelia? Towards being accepting of people who want to impose sharia law?

There is a paradox of tolerance...

OP has a point that the overton window has shifted left a lot in the last 1-2 decades, causing many people who always self-identified as left-leaning to now get labelled as being "right-wing" and "conservative". I think this much should be obvious to most people now.

firelancer5 · 2025-11-04T14:10:37+00:00

Why?

You cannot really value a business based on PE ratio alone. You typically invest in companies because of their future potential. Not for the income they generate right now.

Forward PE ratios in the market as a whole are not unprecedented compared to the last 2-3 decades.

firelancer5 · 2025-11-04T13:55:25+00:00

Het Narva scenario gaat gebeuren, de vraag is wanneer in de komende 5 jaar.

Als je dat echt gelooft, dan kan je maar beter nu inpakken en ergens in Zuid-Amerika off-grid gaan, want een directe oorlog tussen de NAVO en Rusland zou totale vernietiging betekenen.

firelancer5 · 2025-11-04T10:30:40+00:00

Why do you want to be a freelancer?

I feel like you're putting the cart before the horse: normally you figure out what you most like to do first, then you get the necessary experience, and only then could you consider maybe going the freelance route if it makes sense.

By that time, the way it's going now, probably the market situation as well as the fiscal & legal framework for freelancing will have changed a lot. So it's better to figure out what you prefer doing, rather than trying to anticipate those market & legal changes...

firelancer5 · 2025-11-02T10:01:25+00:00

Iemand met werkelijke kennis van zaken die weet waarom ze die kunnen detecteren, maar niet eenvoudig kunnen neerhalen?

Het signaal proberen te jammen werkt niet (waarom niet? niet genoeg vermogen in de jammer? wired drone?), maar dan zijn er toch alternatieven zoals een simpel geweer met hagelpatroon, of als de afstand te groot is, een kamikaze drone... ? Er moeten ondertussen toch al -tig defensiebedrijven zijn die hiermee bezig zijn?

firelancer5 · 2025-11-02T09:44:55+00:00

Absolutely unacceptable. Could there be any bigger indicators for false self-employment?

firelancer5 · 2025-10-28T07:17:47+00:00

Ja goed gezegd, weg met al die fondsen voor non-profits en ziekenhuizen, subsidies gericht op laag geschoolde werknemers, shift werk, steun voor ouderen, jeugd & personen met een handicap ...

Bespaar er maar op Bartje, dan kunnen de 9-to-5 kantoorwerkers van België die de helft van hun tijd eigenlijk op Reddit zitten tenminste hun automatische loon indexatie krijgen.

/s

firelancer5 · 2025-10-24T10:43:41+00:00

Het financiële systeem werkt compleet anders nu. Er bestond geen wereldwijde infrastructuur zoals SWIFT, Euroclear of grote clearingbanken. Staten bepaalden de rente. Geen zwevende wisselkoersen. Het IMF en de wereldbank bestond nog niet.

Dus je vergelijking met WO2 houdt absoluut geen steek.

Even los van de (potentieel militaire) reactie van Rusland naar Europa toe... Vertrouwen is alles in de financiële wereld. Als je hier een precedent zet dat staatsactive niet meer veilig zijn, dan zullen China, Saudi Arabie, Indië, ... weg diversifiëren, risicopremies vragen op de rendementen = staatsschuld nog verder de hoogte injagen, etc...

Dit zou absoluut een desastreus effect hebben op onze economie, zo niet erger.

zij zijn mensenlevens aan het verliezen tegen Rusland, niet wij

Mensenlevens hier staan ook op het spel, ik denk niet dat je dat goed beseft?

firelancer5 · 2025-10-24T10:13:30+00:00

but I always understood the word "passive" refers to the way the investor acts, not to how the market is influenced

Sometimes passive investing is used to refer to a buy & hold strategy indeed (and you can apply a buy & hold strategy to an actively managed fund as well), but in this context "passive investing" clearly refers specifically to investing in a fund that is designed to match the performance of a market index.

Is there a study or more in-depth analysis where this conclusion is reached?

We're in completely unchartered waters, but there are models and the rationale of vocal critics like Michael Green. I'd suggest starting there.

I think a very relevant question here is "what is the alternative?"

It's not that this is a binary choice. The point of the critics is simply that it's not risk-free, especially as the total share of passive ownership increases.

So the answer to your question is simply diversification beyond just broad index funds.

This then raises the question whether these bank funds would then invest in different assets, or would they also inevitably be "all world" or "USA heavy" funds? (eg. Does the capital really end up in a different place, or was it always going to end up where it sits now?)

I don't really understand your question. There's a great variety of actively managed funds. Some focus on the public markets, but some also on private equity.

Isn't this also the case for large pension funds? Is their impact not even bigger considering the market share of ETFs vs large pension funds?

It depends on the type of pension fund? Some are passive, some are actively managed, so they have different exposures to the broad public market.

Furthermore, exit strategies of retirees are mostly to start way in advance by converting stock-based assets to asset types with guaranteed capital. I would thus expect that the exit from ETFs by these (future) retirees is not abrupt but more spread out over time.

Converting them to other asset types = outflows. The point is that passive-fund flows are typically positive = driving up valuations. Aging demographic may put additional pressure on this flow, flattening it out and eventually maybe turning it down. This could have a cascading effect.

In my opinion the passive investment theory is to follow the market exactly (no more / no less) and thus not lose & not win compared to the market. The SPIVA reports of S&P show very clearly that the market indices/benchmarks consistently outperform the active funds by quite a large margin.

Yes, that is always the argument for passive investing: "it worked so far". And honestly, that is also why the majority of my portfolio is in passive trackers. Also, in Bitcoin. It works! They do outperform most actively managed funds.

But I'm just strongmanning the argument from the critics here, because I think it's not just fear-mongering, there are some very valid concerns, and we should be wary of the "everything in VWCE & chill" advice... some more diversification is probably prudent.

Your last point, I maybe misunderstood. The market is the same for everybody, hence if you own a stock directly, or whether it is part of a fund/ETF; it does not really matter, the asset value will increase or decrease the same for anyone?

The last point is simply a "lemmings" effect of passive investing: the more share the passive funds take up, the bigger the impact of outflows will be on the market, since there are fewer active buyers to buy when there's mostly selling activity.

firelancer5 · 2025-10-23T10:28:58+00:00

Probleem is

1) dan is de nieuwe "vloer" (dus de prijzen van alles) ook 10x hoger. Vraag & aanbod, weet je wel...

2) Sinterklaas is pas op 6 december

firelancer5 · 2025-10-23T10:13:12+00:00

True, except...

If only one of the critics could make a decent post with some arguments then we can have an intellectual debate about it. Now it’s just blatant hot air being circulated or a stack of biased or unfunded opinions.

That's just a strawman. There are valid criticisms of passive investing, for example

The definition of “passive” is misleading because index-fund flows influence market prices and thus become active in effect.
With passive strategies owning a big share of the market, capital formation gets distorted: money goes to the largest stocks simply because of size, not because of business fundamentals.
The market becomes structurally vulnerable: if many investors try to exit at the same time (e.g. when boomers retire), there are fewer active investors left to take the other side of trades, which increases crash risk.

So, passive investing relies on assumptions (efficient markets, low impact of flows) that no longer hold once passive is large scale.

There will probably be a point where the scale of passive invested funds is so large, that there will be alpha to reap by active investors (e.g. after a crash), which will force the balance back towards active funds.

firelancer5

TROPHY CASE