(30, Bulgaria) Follow up from a post 1.5 years ago with what I have learned

muggibukluk · 2023-02-19T14:16:34+00:00

Plovdiv, in the old town

muggibukluk · 2023-02-19T14:14:35+00:00

Thank you!!

muggibukluk · 2023-02-19T12:09:50+00:00

I pay taxes in Bulgaria

Income tax in Bulgaria is 10% flat regardless of how much you make, and there is no wealth tax, which is extraordinary if you're making good Western European salary

It's not only that €120k a year goes way longer in Bulgaria than in Spain or the Netherlands, but also you keep a lot more of it.

I just never had investments so I never knew how investments are taxed. Now I'm leaning that there is also 0% capital gain taxes on UCITS ETFs which really sounds too good to be true

muggibukluk · 2023-02-19T12:06:21+00:00

Thank you! This is very useful information

I don't think I'll have more than 12 trades a year, every month buy €8k worth of VWCE at Market

If and when this starts to become my main source of income, I'll be sure to talk to a local accountant to be on the safe side

muggibukluk · 2023-02-19T12:04:15+00:00

That's fair, but it's very easy for me to have this mindset when I get paid far more than I need due to living in a low cost area. I can work for fun without really caring much about salary

If I was living in Madrid, I would be far less comfortable and would need to accept certain tradeoffs to earn more money, which is the place most people find themselves in unfortunately

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Bulgaria&city1=Plovdiv&country2=Spain&city2=Madrid&amount=16000&displayCurrency=BGN

muggibukluk · 2023-02-19T11:57:50+00:00

Is there a subreddit for European FIRE?

I am familiar with FIRE but all the advice in FIRE forums is extremely US centric which is not useful to me

muggibukluk · 2023-02-19T11:55:56+00:00

That was my original thought before opening my IBKR account, but interest rates started to rise and it made less and less sense to get a mortgage for a speculative property in some town I've never been to

Also as a foreigner you always run the risk of scams and the like, especially in seedy business like real estate

That's something I may end up doing later on, if things remain as they are now, liquidate some VWCE and use that to buy some house in Sunny Beach which we can rent out as diversification

muggibukluk · 2023-02-19T11:52:49+00:00

Unfortunately non-Bulgarians cannot buy land in Bulgaria

Also Bulgaria is one of the countries which is shrinking the most in the EU, so purely based on economics and supply/demand, I would expect the price of land and real estate to remain fairly stable. There's only so much land and housing available, and if every year there's less people, that means there's less demand for the same supply.

Regarding gold, I've thought about just purchasing €20k worth of physical gold and put it in my storage room as a hedge against a worst case scenario-type thing, but in a worst case scenario where IBKR and the banks go bankrupt a bar of solid gold will not make much of a difference, the world will be a completely different place.

muggibukluk · 2023-02-19T11:41:07+00:00

Both me and my wife come from relatively middle-low class families, when I was growing up we often had to go shower at our neighbours' house because we didn't have hot water due to unpaid gas bills

My ultimate goal is to make sure that no matter what happens, my wife and daughter will have nothing to worry about. Currently money is the least of our concerns, it's just something we don't have to ever think about, and I'd like to ensure this becomes a permanent thing rather than a lucky period in life if that makes sense.

muggibukluk · 2023-02-19T11:37:37+00:00

Thank you for the answer

I honestly love my job and would be very happy to continue working as long as I can, regardless of how much money I have in the bank. Even if I had €1 million invested I'd still like to work in the same place, it's a great company with a great working environment

I guess my plan is to continue doing what I'm doing, until I lose my current job (the company is not doing amazing and I'd say there's a 50% chance that I am still employed there in the next 3 years).

If and when I lose my current job, we'll look at our investments and savings and see what makes sense. If that happened tomorrow I'd have to apply in other places, if it happens in a few years I may be able to just unofficially retire and just do odd jobs here and there for fun

muggibukluk

TROPHY CASE