The Poor Swiss - Diary of my journey into Personal finance

11 Things I Love about Switzerland – Beautiful country

Mr. The Poor SwissJuly 18, 2018July 11, 2018SwitzerlandLeave a comment

Last week, I published a list of things I hate about Switzerland. Even though there are some things I really dislike about Switzerland, I love leaving in Switzerland. In this post, I’m going to list the things I really love about Switzerland. While there was only 5 things in my hate list, there are 11 in my love list 🙂 And there are not the only things I love about Switzerland. This tells you that I really have many more things I like about it than things I don’t like.

Before you read what I love about Switzerland, you should be aware of my situation 🙂 You have to remember that I live in the Swiss countryside. I live in a very small village. And I don’t like cities. Some people like cities more than villages, but I would hate living in a city. I also like hiking a lot and I like being outside. This will be reflected in some of the things I like the most about Switzerland.

Below, you’ll find 11 things I love about Switzerland. They have almost nothing to do with money. And they are in no particular order 😉

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Investing 6. Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) Arbitrage

Mr. The Poor SwissJuly 16, 2018July 16, 2018Broker, ETF, InvestmentLeave a comment

In part 4 of the Investing series, we have covered Exchange Traded Funds (ETF). In this post, I’ve mentioned that ETF used arbitrage to follow closely the price of the index. If the price of the stocks in the index go up, the price of the ETF should follow. And if the price of the stocks go down, the price of the ETF should follow as well. But if the price of the ETF goes up because of stock market trading, something should correct the price quickly. This is where arbitrage plays a big role.

In this post, we are going to see how Exchange Traded Funds are created. And also what is arbitrage ? How it makes sure the price of ETF stay in sync with the price of the index. It’s a bit of a complicated subject. But I think it’s important to know exactly how financial instrument are working before investing in them.

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5 Things I hate about Switzerland

Mr. The Poor SwissJuly 13, 2018July 10, 2018FIRE, Spending, Switzerland7 Comments

While I really like Switzerland and I plan to spend all my life here, there some things I really don’t like about it. In this post, I’m going to discuss the five things I hate about Switzerland.

I’m not about to leave Switzerland and I hope I will never have to. There will be a post coming up about the things I love about Switzerland and they will be more numerous 😉 But I think it’s important to realize that no country is perfect. Some things should definitely be improved in Switzerland.

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MBudget Mini and Maxi Promotion – Double the monthly data

Mr. The Poor SwissJuly 11, 2018July 10, 2018Budget, Frugality, Spending8 Comments

I’ve just seen that Migros started a very nice offer on their MBudget Mini and MBudget Maxi mobile plan. You can now get twice more mobile data each month for free. I think it’s a great offer. So I wanted to share this offer with you! I hope many of you can profit from this awesome offer!

From July 1st to August 31st, you get twice more data for one year. For the same price! This is also working for current customers! My monthly data allowance just got doubled from 600Mo to 1.2Go 🙂

Here are the details of the two plans from Migros:

MBudget Mini is 19 CHF / month. You normally get 600Mo per month. Now you can get 1200Mo per month
MBudget Maxi is 29 CHF / month. You normally get 2Go per month. Now you’ll get 4Go per month.

Here is the link to the promotion: MBudget Mobile Double Data promotion

If you are an existing customer, there is no downside to it. You can get double the data for one year. If you want to change mobile plan, this is the perfect plan 🙂

I’ve been a customer of Migros mobile plans for more than 1 year now. Recently, I changed from the Maxi to the Mini plan to save 10 CHF per month. I haven’t had any issue with them so far. The plan is great and I’ve been able to keep below 600Mo. However, I have to be very careful. But with more data, I will be able to use my phone a bit more. Especially since I don’t have WIFI at work anymore. So far, I really their offer. And the network is really good since they are using Swisscom network which is the best in my region. For now, I don’t have any reason to find a better plan. And it’s even more the case with this offer.

What mobile plan do you prefer ?

Investing 5. Index Replication in details – ETFs and Mutual Funds

Mr. The Poor SwissJuly 9, 2018July 6, 2018ETF, InvestmentLeave a comment

This post is part 5 of 5 in the series Investing – All about investing.

In the previous post of the Investing series, we talked about Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). Before that, we talked about mutual funds. In both these two cases, we focused especially on passive index funds. Index funds are replicating an existing index. For instance, the SP&500 index is replicated by many mutual funds and many ETFs. In this post, we are going to focus on index replication.

There are several different ways of replicating an index. There is physical index replication and synthetic index replication. It’s important to know how funds are replicating the index. If you want to make a good choice between the different ETFs and mutual funds that exist, it is important to know the different ways they are using for replicating the index.

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My monthly personal finance routine – 11 things I do each month

Mr. The Poor SwissJuly 6, 2018July 5, 2018Budget, FIRE, Goals, Monthly2 Comments

Each month, I’m following the same personal finance routine for my budget. You can see most of the results in my monthly finance reports. In this post, I’m going to describe the steps I’m doing every month.

I think it’s great to have a routine. This helps to get more efficient and like this you don’t forget to do everything.

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June 2018 – Insurance month!

Mr. The Poor SwissJuly 2, 2018July 1, 2018Frugality, Monthly, Spending12 Comments

Less things happened in June 2018 than the crazy previous month!

Although it’s a good month for savings, it’s not as good as I planned. This month is the first month I received my new salary 🙂 But it was a very expensive month 🙁 We had to pay many insurance fees. And several other relatively big expenses. But it’s still not too bad 🙂

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Investing 4. – Exchange Traded Funds – ETFs

Mr. The Poor SwissJune 29, 2018July 9, 2018Broker, ETF, FIRE, InvestmentLeave a comment

This post is part 4 of 5 in the series Investing – All about investing.

In the previous post of the Investing series, we talked about mutual funds. They are a great tool for investment. And especially passive funds with very low fees, thanks to index investing.

This is all great, but the problem with mutual funds is their availability. If you are lucky, you have access to Vanguard. And you can directly invest in their low fees mutual funds. There are other like Vanguard, but they are the most famous 😉 If you are not lucky, for instance, if you live in Switzerland, you don’t have any easy access to good mutual funds. I can bet that your bank does not offer cheap passive funds. At least mine doesn’t! Here comes Exchange Traded Funds!

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How to sell things online in Switzerland ?

Mr. The Poor SwissJune 27, 2018July 9, 2018Frugality, Side Hustle, Spending, Switzerland, Tips1 Comment

Recently, I did some ordering in my technology closet (yes, I have a technology closet…). And I realized that I had way too many things stored at home. I also realized that I had way too many servers. So I decided to sell online a few things and to dismount two of my servers to sell the pieces. I’m mostly using online websites to sell things. I’m far from a minimalist. But I’m trying to reduce a bit the amount of burden I own. And if I can get some money in the process, it is bonus 😉

In this post, I’m going to talk about what am I selling online in Switzerland. And how am I selling them!

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Investing – 3. Mutual Funds and Index Investing

Mr. The Poor SwissJune 25, 2018July 9, 2018ETF, InvestmentLeave a comment

This post is part 3 of 5 in the series Investing – All about investing.

In the previous post of the series, we covered stocks and bonds. They are important financial investing instruments. They both have their advantages. Bonds are more stable but will return less. Stocks are more volatile but should return more. In a balanced portfolio, you need both. But picking stocks and bonds is a lot of work. And it’s a difficult one. It requires a lot of knowledge and time.

So why not let other people pick bonds and stocks for you ?

Investment funds are doing exactly that for you. In this post we are going to cover them!

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