Terence Huijgen (30) has his own digital agency and calls himself a "tech entrepreneur". He is inspired by FI/RE, has been investing for six months, and is saving for a dream wedding.
Life changing
“An article by journalist Ernst Jan Pfauth, who writes about financial independence, has had a life-changing effect on me. That may sound exaggerated, but since then I have not only started to delve into budgeting and saving, I now also have a lot more money left at the end of the month. At first, I worked with an Excel sheet and paid for everything manually, but I soon started using Flow app. That is also what Pfauth advises people who want to handle money better: make sure that everything is transferred automatically because then the money is gone from your head and you don't have to worry about it anymore.”
Twenty jars
“Because I started using Flow, I gained more insight into my money and I started to save more and more. My salary goes to twenty different jars such as fuel, groceries, care, subscriptions, investments, and gifts for friends. And a quarter of what comes in I save: ten percent goes to a buffer for unforeseen costs, and fifteen percent is intended for larger goals: a vacation to Bali and the dream wedding that my girlfriend and I have in mind.”
Neurotic
“Because I expect that in the summer when corona has less grip on the world, I will eat out more often or drink a beer on a terrace, I am also putting extra money aside for that. Now, it may sound a little bit like I'm a terrible neurotic, but it's really not that bad. I just really enjoy it and take pleasure in taking into account what is coming financially.”
FI/RE
“I find the FIRE principle very inspiring. It stands for Financial Independent Retire Early and in a nutshell, it means that you take a very critical look at your expenses, and live as frugally as possible in order to be able to retire earlier. I don't use that principle so rigidly, because I will always want a really good laptop and the latest iPhone. My company makes apps, so I think it's important to have the latest technical gadgets. My girlfriend and I did decide that we want to reduce our housing costs quite a bit. We will, therefore, soon be moving from Utrecht to Drenthe. And things that you can easily get second–hand, such as a dining table, I will never buy new.”
Weekly groceries
“I recently started doing my shopping at Lidl once a week. If you had told me earlier that I now do the weekly shopping, I would not have believed it. When I first started it I thought it was weird, but it's really great. I used to go to Albert Heijn every day and then I often bought a bottle of wine, a bag of chips, or something else to snack. Every time something extra, you really feel that in your wallet. Now and then I also let Hellofresh deliver. That is not necessarily cheap, but it saves a lot of time and you also cook something different than usual.”
Dream wedding
“A while back I proposed to my girlfriend, and in a year we want to get married. The idea is to organize some kind of festival; we provide a beautiful location, people bring their own tent and we eat from large barbecues. My girlfriend has been dreaming of a wedding for a long time and I really want to give it to her. When arranging our wedding day, we look for the balance between an affordable wedding and a wedding the way we really want it. We are not going to save on things that really matter to us, such as location. After all, you only get married once.”
A bit scary
“Six months ago I started investing in ETFs at Degiro, which are, sort of, packages with hundreds of shares in them. Last month I bought my first share, in Takeaway. So far, investing is going well: I have a profit of 8 percent on all my invested money. Because I am an entrepreneur, I have to arrange my own retirement, so that is my goal with investing. I have calculated that I can retire at 66. If I achieve a seven percent return each year, I will have 1.7 million euros in my investment pot by then. That seems like a nice amount to be able to live on after I retire. I find it a bit scary because investing is something new for me. But I follow many talks and podcasts, and I think it should work out if I keep the long term in mind.”
