The Poor Swiss

Interview of Julius Kirscheneder, Founder of The Neon Bank

Mr. The Poor SwissJuly 19, 2019July 19, 2019Leave a comment

Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing Julius Kirscheneder, one of the founders of Neon. I hope you will like this interview as much as the other interviews I have made in the past on this blog.

Neon is a great Swiss bank. I have already talked about it as one of the best banks in Switzerland. What makes it different from the other banks is that it is entirely digital. You will not find Neon offices in Switzerland. Instead, you will have your bank in your pocket all the time!

Another way they distinguish themselves is that they are very cheap. In fact, if you use it well, they are free!

Neon was founded in 2017 in Switzerland by four people, one of whom is Julius that I will be interviewing today. They now employ ten people, mostly in Zurich. In fact, they are not really a bank since they do not have a banking license. They are working with Hypothekarbank Lenzburg acts, which acts as their banking partner.

So, let’s hear what Julius Kirscheneder, Founder of the Neon Bank has to say!

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13 Greatest Stock Market Myths that do not die

Mr. The Poor SwissJuly 17, 2019July 2, 20192 Comments

The stock market is a strange place for many. It is surrounded by many myths. And if you are not careful and believe in these myths, you may well end up losing a lot of money. Some of these myths make people not want to invest in the stock market. As such they are losing a nice opportunity to invest their money.

Some of these myths came from the early stock market where it was indeed more difficult to start investing. However, many things are not true anymore and some things that were facts long ago are now myths.

It is important that you do your own research. And it very important that you base your investing strategy on facts and not myths. For this, it is very interesting to go over the myths to make sure you do not fall for one of them.

In this post, I am going to list the 13 biggest myths of the stock market.

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How to Calculate your Financial Independence (FI) Ratio

Mr. The Poor SwissJuly 15, 2019July 15, 201918 Comments

When you have a goal, it is always good to know your progress towards this goal. If you are trying to become Financially Independent, it will be important for you to know how far away you are from your goal! For this, you will need to know your Financial Independence (FI) Ratio. This ratio will tell you how close, or how far, you are from reaching your goal.

If your goal is to become FI, you will have a certain amount of net worth that you will have to reach before you can become FI. This is your FI number. Once your net worth equals your FI Number, you are financially free. That is the main idea.

Your FI ratio will tell you exactly where you are on your path to Financial Independence. In this post, we are going to see exactly how to compute your goal and then how to compute your progress towards the goal. This could help you a lot to see if you need to adjust your strategy to reach your goal on time.

Stay tuned if you want to know when you are going to be financially free!

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Why Dollar Cost Averaging is not as good as you think

Mr. The Poor SwissJuly 12, 2019July 10, 201910 Comments

When you have a large sum of money to invest, you have two choices. Either you invest it at once or you cut it in smaller sums and you invest it over a longer period. The latter option is called Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA).

Most people will tell you that you should always Dollar Cost Average your investments. However, I believe that investing a lump sum is always better than using DCA.

In this post, we are going to see what is DCA exactly and what are its advantages and downsides. With that done, we will know how to invest a lump sum.

We are also going to talk about Continuous Investing. This when you invest your savings every month, as soon as you have it available. Some people call this DCA, but I think this is not accurate. These are two different things. One is great, but the other is not.

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Interview of Felix Niederer, CEO of True Wealth Robo-Advisor

Mr. The Poor SwissJuly 10, 2019July 11, 20193 Comments

Today, I have the pleasure to interview Felix Niederer, CEO of True Wealth! I have done several interviews in the past on the blog and they were well received. One of my readers, Roy, suggested that I interview the CEO of True Wealth as well and this is now done!

True Wealth is an online wealth management company, based in Switzerland. It was founded in 2013 and is well established in the asset management sector. Its founders are Oliver Herren and Felix Niederer, the latter is also the CEO and the one I am interviewing today.

They are part of the Robo-Advisor movement that has started this last decade. Instead of paying large fees to active traders, you pay lower fees and an automated system will do the investing for you. This is the case of True Wealth. You choose a portfolio and then every time you add money to your account, it gets invested according to your portfolio.

So, let’s hear what Felix Niederer, CEO of True Wealth has to say!

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Online Shopping in Switzerland – The best websites

Mr. The Poor SwissJuly 8, 2019June 17, 20196 Comments

These days, a lot of shopping is done online. It is so practical to shop for something online. It can save you a lot of time. And it allows you to easily compare many different websites to get the best deals. This can also save you some money.

Of course, online shopping also has its dark side. Since it is so convenient to shop online, some people are buying many more things than they should. It is so easy to press a button and get things delivered at home. I am sure it happened to many of you. At least, it happened to me!

If you are only buying things you need, online shopping can be a great thing. But you still need to know where to shop online. Even in our small Swiss country, there are hundreds of websites where to shop. And let’s not forget that sometimes online shopping is not cheaper than shopping in a normal shop!

In this post, I am going to list the best online shopping websites in Switzerland. This should allow you to shop for the best prices!

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How to start investing in P2P Lending

Mr. The Poor SwissJuly 5, 2019June 17, 201923 Comments

You probably have heard of P2P Lending! It is the new trend of investing these days. A lot of people are investing and some people are even using it as their sole investing instrument.

When I created my Investor Policy Statement, I stated that I could consider investing between 5% and 10% of my net worth outside of stocks. Therefore, I decided to start researching P2P Lending. And after a while, I decided to start to invest some money.

I have not invested a lot of money into it yet. And I do not plan to invest a lot of money at all. This is just some small diversification. I believe this could not replace stock investing. And I believe this is riskier.

In this post, we are going to see the basics of P2P Lending. And I am going to detail my current investments.

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Out of The Rat Race – Financial Freedom – Book Review

Mr. The Poor SwissJuly 3, 2019July 7, 20192 Comments

I just finished reading Out of The Rat Race – The Quest for Financial Freedom, by Eric Duneau. This book is about getting to Financial Freedom and be free to choose what you want to do with your valuable time.

The author of the book reached Financial Freedom in the United Kingdom by investing in Real Estate properties and renting them. He did that by only saving about 8% of his income. This is important because most other literature advises a much higher saving rate.

This book is quite interesting to read. It is very well written and contains a huge wealth of information on the money system in the world. It offers an alternative to the common idea of Financial Independence.

Stay tuned if you want to know why we cannot trust money and how a man became financially free while saving only 8% of his income.

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June 2019 – Holidays, Taxes and Insurances!

Mr. The Poor SwissJuly 1, 2019June 28, 20196 Comments

After a very cheap month of May, June 2019 comes back with a very expensive month. This is often the case in June since this is the middle of the year and this is when I pay some of the bills. But this month is worse than usual.

From a financial point of view, this is the worst month in the last 16 months. I would not have thought we could come back to this level. But this is proof that I do not plan my spending very well. I knew it would be bad since several bills were planned. But I underestimated some of them.

On the other hand, we had a nice holiday in the Swiss mountains. And another nice family weekend in Jura. So, from a personal point of view, it was a good month.

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9 Essential Weapons of Financial Independence

Mr. The Poor SwissJune 28, 2019May 29, 20194 Comments

(This post was first published on YourMoneyGeek. Thanks a lot to Michael Dinich for the opportunity!)

Financial Independence is a great thing. It means you are free to choose to do what you want and do not have to rely on your job to support your lifestyle. Who would not want that? More and more people are trying to become financially independent.

However, the road to Financial Independence is paved with obstacles. To overcome these obstacles, you will need to use all the weapons that are available to you. Mastering these weapons will make your journey to Financial Independence faster and simpler.

In this post, I am going to go over the 9 most essential weapons that are available to you to reach Financial Independence. Some of these weapons are absolutely essential while others are more optional. However, you will need to use a combination of these weapons and master them if you are serious about becoming financially free!

Stay tuned to master your fight to Financial Independence!

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