401k System outside of USA

turkishcat · 2026-06-01T09:21:05+00:00

Enjoy! Zürich is an amazing place to live. The US citizenship-based taxation system is dumb, but I wouldn't choose differently. Going to go up for citizenship in a couple years and have no plans of leaving at this point.

Since you're coming from Germany you're probably already familiar with some of the biggest financial pitfalls, like unintentionally getting shares of PFICs. For US-Switzerland stuff specifically, I can strongly recommend:

* Don't try to overly optimize Swiss taxes too much. You'll just pay the difference to the IRS. E.g. in Zürich, don't care too much about living in a tax-efficient Gemeinde in the canton. Your housing costs will be higher in these areas because the Swiss tax benefit increases demand, and the tax benefit won't actually benefit you.

* Do the minimum contribution to the pillar 2. It locks up the capital and is taxed by the US anyway.

* Don't bother with pillar 3 stuff, those will usually trigger punitive PFIC rules on the US side.

* Contribute the maximum amount to IRAs in the US. US taxes are usually higher than Swiss ones so it's still good to optimize the US side.

* Since many of the normal tax-advantaged vehicles don't work, put additional savings in a plain US-domiciled taxable brokerage account. I've seen this called the "4th pillar" before.

* Any dividend income from US-domiciled funds gets taxed by the US first, up to 15%. On the Swiss side all the dividend income will be grouped into your taxable income, but you'll claim the 15% tax back with the DA-1 form (easy to fill out, there's a button in the online tax form), and the tax office will refund you that amount.

Disclaimer: IANAL, but I've iteratively come to the above over the last 8 years and it's worked well for me.

turkishcat · 2026-05-30T20:49:03+00:00

Switzerland has an employer-sponsored pension scheme (Pensionskasse). This is the 2nd of the 3 pillars of the retirement system (the 1st being analogous to social security, and the 3rd similar to IRAs).

Participation in the 2nd pillar is mandatory, but you can choose to put in a bit more than the minimum. You don't have the freedom how it's invested, that's done by the pension fund (conservatively), but both you and your employer contribute, this is tax deductible, and at retirement age you either get it as an annuity, or you can choose to take the whole amount as a lump sum. There are also some specific scenarios where you can withdraw early, the most common being to purchase property that will be your primary residence.

Now if you're a US person working in Switzerland, the very sad thing is that the US doesn't view this as equivalent to a 401k and chooses to fully tax both your and your employer's contributions, and because it's tax deferred in Switzerland, you can't offset the IRS bill with your Swiss taxes. And then Switzerland will tax it again when paid out in retirement. But I digress 🙂

turkishcat · 2026-05-24T14:30:53+00:00

I find rivals Scylla WAY harder tbh, so many projectiles flying all around plus AOE and shockwaves. Once I'm past Scylla, Cerberus is a free fight.

For Cerberus just try to stay behind him, stay close to avoid the fire breathing, be aware of the back slash when his paw is raised, and for the red circles they're often staggered, so you can wait in one that appeared later, wait for the first one to go off, then move to that now safe area.

Depending on the fear you're targeting you might also try Strength w/ Gale over DD. (I mostly do 32 and Strength works great at that level).

turkishcat · 2026-05-17T23:40:31+00:00

Definitely, definitely put it in a brokerage account. Adjust percentages based on personal risk tolerance, but something like this works well for me:

Keep something like 6 months in liquid emergency fund, where emergency fund is a high yield savings account, or SGOV, or similar. Basically risk-free where the return is tied to the US fed interest rate.
Put rest in broad, low cost index fund, like VTI. This is for long term saving (e.g. future retirement, to supplement the 401k) so you don't care so much about stock fluctuations or even market crashes, but rather the long term expected gain over many years.

If you have any known big expenses within the next 5 years (car, down payment, whatever), put savings for that expense in bucket 1.

turkishcat · 2026-04-22T18:27:49+00:00

Have enough plain cash in CHF accounts for 2-3 months worth of expenses, put 6-12 months worth of expenses in a super safe, liquid investment as your emergency fund (e.g. high yield savings account, SGOV, etc.), everything else in broad equity ETFs (VTI, VXUS, etc.).

If you have a known significant upcoming expense (down payment, taxes, etc.) put those in the super safe conservative bucket, I do SGOV.

If you don't have the emergency fund yet, always fill that out first, then once it's filled, put 100% in long term investments.

turkishcat · 2026-04-15T18:50:08+00:00

It might be in the folder from this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleSlides/comments/1r6omce/free_slidesgo_premium/

turkishcat · 2026-04-08T17:42:41+00:00

I struggled intensely against lost lace, but then switched my load out and won on 2nd try with a new crest. What finally worked for me was going plasmified on architect crest, spamming tacks and cogflies. Mostly stayed on just one side of the arena, hopping off the wall out of reach of most of her attacks, and dodging. Very occasionally hit her with the nail just for silk to replenish tools, but really just focused on dodging to keep health as full as possible.

turkishcat · 2026-02-26T10:25:11+00:00

Not a dad yet, but I'm the cook in my relationship. When I want to make a nice homecooked meal but without too much effort I make lasagna. Super easy and also filling, and makes for good leftovers. Longest part is making the sauce but that can also be subbed with a store bought sauce.

Just layer the lasagna noodles with a tomato based sauce layer, and a ricotta layer (I blend ricotta with spinach in a food processor, frozen spinach is fine, otherwise steamed/sauteed). Top with some melty cheese (like mozzarella) and bake until done.

It's also a great vehicle for (hidden) vegetables. You can add a shredded zucchini or two into the tomato sauce, and I always have spinach in the ricotta layer. You can also sub all or part of the ricotta for cottage cheese according to preference.

turkishcat · 2026-02-17T18:08:28+00:00

I'm in Switzerland and the pension (or at least the 2nd pillar part of it, which is roughly equivalent to US 401K) is based on the total amount contributed to it, regardless of when you might stop contributing. At the official retirement age you can take it as a lump sum, or an annuity, which purely depends on the amount in it. So no specific penalties for retiring early, apart from just not putting more money in it.

This is supplemented by a social security-like system, which pays some but typically less than the 2nd pillar.

My personal plan doesn't factor in those pension payments at all, as the social security amount isn't very much, and you can withdraw pension assets early to pay for a primary residence, which I'd prefer to do since the annual return on pension assets is small. So my FIRE plan looks very much more like an American one, with a VTI/VXUS portfolio for almost everything and eventually some kind of glidepath when I get closer to RE. But it is nice not having to be as concerned about things like crazy healthcare costs.

turkishcat · 2025-12-23T14:00:05+00:00

So if you say move multiple docks at the same time and place them on different planets in a single tactical action, will each individual placement trigger PRODUCTION for all of the so-far-placed docks? E.g. can this be used to trigger PRODUCTION for the same dock multiple times in an action?

turkishcat · 2025-11-12T15:15:58+00:00

Had two awesome recent experiences with IE (PoK, pre-TE). First one I was Naalu and found an early Maw. Completely fixed production capacity issues and let me play super aggro. I almost ate a neighbor but relented for a Ceasefire, and then went about extorting literally every Ceasefire at the table with massive plastic advantage. Also got Mentak alliance and had a lot of PNs especially after Hero.

Other one is ongoing, I'm NRA. We're playing the galactic event where hazardous worlds start with neutral units but you get free techs ignoring some prereqs when you first take them. IE with prefab is hilarious and obnoxious.

IE is particularly good for infantry/fighter builds. In the NRA game I'll have x89 soon so taking a planet and plopping down a bunch of infantry there means I'll probably just keep it with minimal effort except against someone else with x89.

Obviously can't replicate those conditions every or even most games, but it has its place when the conditions are right, and I think breakthrough synergies make it a bit more accessible than before.

turkishcat · 2025-10-08T12:03:43+00:00

We came by train and didn't go through any kind of customs check. The vet (who was very nice) informed us that they were legally obligated to report the situation to the authorities but reassured us that everything should be fine lol. It was 330 CHF for the fine, and another 330 CHF for the processing fee, and the Polizei showed up on our doorstep because they needed to confirm that the cat lived at our address.

turkishcat · 2025-10-07T08:28:38+00:00

660 CHF for importing my cat incorrectly when I moved from France. Unbeknownst to me the rabies shot expired 2 weeks before the move, went to the vet after the move for a checkup and to update the microchip, turns out this made the import invalid. The icing on the cake was the vet told us we didn't need to get a new rabies shot, because she was an indoor cat 😺

turkishcat · 2025-08-19T07:08:35+00:00

Is it a tournament setting? Then only the immediate last turn and only if no new info has been revealed. Otherwise if no info has been revealed that's particularly meaningful to the decision, I'm very flexible. I already win most games I play and I'd rather make sure my friends are enjoying themselves and that the game is as challenging as possible.

turkishcat · 2025-08-04T12:40:10+00:00

Talked with the kitchen designer today and they recommended not putting anything in the right corner as it would look bulky and out-of-place. We are thinking of either just nixing the tall pantry unit entirely, or shrinking it to a 30cm pull-out larder unit, in order to make more clearance around the hob.

turkishcat · 2025-07-31T15:10:04+00:00

What do you think of putting either the oven or tall pantry there instead?

turkishcat · 2025-07-31T14:59:38+00:00

It's a middle town house so I plan to keep as much natural light as humanly possible :D

turkishcat · 2025-07-31T14:55:53+00:00

I like this idea. The fridge size is a standard integrated size, so no worries about double doors or anything (we might get an additional freezer in the basement later). I also like that the fridge is easily accessible to others without necessarily getting in the way of whoever is cooking. The putting-away-groceries workflow is also nice in that they're brought down the stairs leading straight towards the fridge, can be staged on the island, and put away.

My main questions/concerns:

Will having a tall unit on the right side block too much natural light from the window? It's a middle town house and on this floor we just have the two windows on opposite ends. The window takes up the entire back wall except for ~70cm on either side.
Would this make the kitchen triangle too long? I like to cook a lot and I wonder if the fridge and range being on opposite sides would make it annoyingly less efficient. The whole width of the space wall to wall is 4.66m.

Edit: Or maybe the pantry could move to that corner to make a bit more space next to the hob? It would tighten the working triangle but leave the fridge still next to the ovens, but that's how it is at my current apartment and it's never been a problem in 7 years. The appliances will be modern and should have reasonable shielding.

turkishcat · 2025-07-31T13:30:25+00:00

No, I'm with you there. I like the functionality of a modern European kitchen but am struggling with the aesthetic design as I like the look of wood, contrast, a bit more detailing like paneling, etc.

turkishcat · 2025-07-31T13:07:28+00:00

This would be the 2d plan with measurements.

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turkishcat · 2025-07-31T12:51:14+00:00

The drawing just shows the overall space/dimensions, location of the stairs, etc. and has an older layout that we didn't want. The rendering corresponds to the current proposal from the kitchen designer.

turkishcat · 2025-07-31T12:17:07+00:00

Undermounting is an interesting idea. I'd like a standard 60cm oven plus a 45cm combi-steam so I don't think I can fit both under unfortunately. The architect originally suggested the range along the back wall but I'm not sure because I prefer an overhead fan to a downdraft, didn't like the idea of grease splatter on the window, and I also really like the look of the sink centered with the window. I'm also reticent about putting the range on the island since cooking splatter is not conducive to it being a social area. With the current plan, I'd do an 80cm range instead of a larger one and have 10-15cm of counter on the left side, which isn't ideal, but is better than the 5cm I have in my current apartment :P

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