Financial Independence Europe Podcast

Today Alvar is back with the Podcast after longer break. Together we discuss all FI Meetups we know in Europe. If you have more meetups or ideas send us a message at financialindependenceeurope at gmail.com or DM on Twitter or Instagram @FiEurope.

Today Mathias talks with Luke and Rebecca about donating and philanthropy. Luke works for the organisation Giving What we Can” and Rebecca is already retired from her corporate career at WeWork and other companies. She is now teaching people part time about  personal finance at Yield and Spread.

Interestingly Rebecca is now giving what she earns in her side business to people in need. Today we want to find out why. Once you achieve a certain wealth, people often experience a strong desire to help others in need. Of course many of you are also giving before hitting that milestone right in your accumulation phase. Especially these days where millions are fleeing from war even in middle Europe. Something we really could not imagine some time ago.

We already talked with Sebastian in episode 36 about effective altruism and want to extend the topic even further.

So today: You’ll learn about the motivation behind giving, how to screen for most effective projects, the history and evolution of philanthropy and how Europe and the US are different in here.

Don’t forget to apply for the FI Europe Retreat starting may where you can meet 25 ambitious and relaxed FI Europeans at the pool in the middle of the Spanish mountains.

We talk about

- Motivation behind giving

- History of philanthropy in US and EU

- How Giving What We Can works

- How Rebacca has retired and donates

🤓 Full show notes and mentioned links on our website: http://bit.ly/fieurope147 🏄‍♀️

Hi FI Europeans,

this is Mathias. In this episode I speak with Nick Neumann. He is the CEO of Casa a Startup from Denver in the US. 

today talk about the different security aspects of holding crypto and here especially Bitcoin as one of the more conservative plays in that field. 

The one important question you have to ask yourself when holding crypto is. Whom do you trust more: yourself or an exchange.

So in the past your choice has been storing crypto on a hardware wallet and potentially losing the device or the password. Or you could have kept your holdings on an Exchange like Binance or Coinbase where you do not control the cryptographic key to the wallet. 

Casa is helping to make hardware wallets and self custody more resistant to human failure improving user friendliness and resilience. 

And by that it’s making crypto available for a broader audience and driving the evolution of the current wave of new financial services. 🤓 Full show notes and mentioned links on our website: http://bit.ly/fieurope146 🏄‍♀️

Hi Fi Europeans,

this is Mathias and today I talk with Toni Vitali. He is a member of our community and a professional Basketball Player transitioning to his post-sports profession.

He was growing up in Croatia and recently moved to sweden. He is also blogging about Financial Independence towards his audience in croatia.

So I’m pretty curious how these sports careers work, what people in Croatia think about financial independence and money in general and what his approach to build wealth is.

I also was slightly surprised when we talked about taxes in Croatia and Sweden. I hope you like this episode after a little break here with the Podcast in the last couple of months. 🤓 Full show notes and mentioned links on our website: http://bit.ly/fieurope145 🏄‍♀️

Information about the FI Europe Retreat 2022: 🏖️ https://bit.ly/fieuretreat22

Today in the second part we cover the basics of Bitcoin. Still many FI Europeans haven’t gotten their feet wet with crypto. If you like to start experimenting with it or you already started but haven’t thought about the basic concepts behind you might want to continue listening.

If you’re already a pro you might want to skip the episode. We also suggesting some simple steps and tools to start investing. 

Nevertheless I want to emphasize that there is no need to necessarily invest in BTC or crypto if it’s not your cup of tea you’ll be still fine. No need to have fear of missing out although the returns of the past years have outperformed the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. Check out also the PDF in the show notes with some how to guides. As usual this episode is no official financial advice. Your capital might be at risk. 🤓 Full show notes and mentioned links on our website: http://bit.ly/fieurope144 🏄‍♀️

Hi Fi Europeans,

today I talk with David, a member of our community about cryptocurrencies and in particular Bitcoin. While you might not want to employ crypto to achieve your financial independence goals as it’s harder to predict the result compared with a diversified ETF-Portfolio. Some people already made a small fortune with their early crypto adoption and knocking at the doors of family offices asking for help to preserve their new wealth and transition to a more conservative and diversified approach.

This is the first part of two episodes that is focusing more on what money is and how banks work with our money, how inflation works and it affects our Financial Independence plans. We think it’s important to understand the impact of the new types of money that currently emerge. 🤓 Full show notes and mentioned links on our website: http://bit.ly/fieurope143 🏄‍♀️

Hi FI Europeans,

today I had the pleasure to interview Martins Sulte who is founder and CEO of Mintos. It’s  the biggest P2P Lending marketplace in Europe and they started in 2015  and are headquartered in Riga.

On mintos platform there are currently around 50 companies that lend out loans in 12 currencies to borrowers in 38 countries worldwide. More than 40k investors fund loans in 9 loan segments. Like car loans, property, agriculture, small business, consumer loans and so forth..

In this episode we talk about how Martins experienced and managed the first real economic crisis due to Covid19 and we discuss how  the industry will evolve going forward e.g. with regulation.

We also cover how the Financial Independence Community can leverage P2P, what asset classes Martins invests in and if Crypto and Sustainable Financial is a thing for mintos going forward.

Hope you enjoy my chat with Martin!

Don’t miss upcoming episodes https://financial-indpendence.eu/newsletter 🤓 Full show notes and mentioned links on our website: http://bit.ly/fieurope142 🏄‍♀️

Hi FI europeans,

some people are really good and a natural fit in building up and managing a bunch of properties. They like to interact with people, workers and other local stakeholders of their real estates.

They dig deep into the knowledge domain of Real Estate and take the time. So much time that there is not much left to learn about other asset classes.

Like me not everybody currently has the time and ambition to dig deep into DIY real estate investing and want a kind of managed solution.

For those there are Real Estate ETFs, Property P2P Lending and local real state agencies available to choose from. All with their respective advantages and disadvantages.

Additionally to these options there are also solutions where there is a lead investor and you can join them as a smaller fellow investor. They get your capital and you get their knowledge, market access and network of experts.

Sounds too good to be true? Mostly the problems are in the details of course… so lets have a look.

Today I will have another attempt to find a managed solution for real estate investments. I talk to Kris from White Fire Equity. He is an american living in switzerland.

Let me know what you think in the comments on our website and in the facebook Group that you can find at financial-indendence.eu/community. 🤓 Full show notes and mentioned links on our website: http://bit.ly/fieurope141 🏄‍♀️

Hi FI Europeans,

have you ever ask yourself how life would be if you haven’t chosen a certain life path?

If you would have studied something different

If you would have changed job earlier

if your husband had taken more parental leave and you could better accelerate your career

While you cannot change the past without a time machine you might want to go into a new direction in the present or future.

Today I talk about reversing “wrong” life choices with Silke Rosenbusch.

She had a tough time being an actor and was switching  to a career in medicine. She is also side hustling since a decade

And now she is focusing family plans in a different way. Hope you enjoy this case study with Sike today! And sorry for the occasional background noise. There was a film team in my little studio while I recorded the episode. 🤓 Full show notes and mentioned links on our website: http://bit.ly/fieurope140 🏄‍♀️

Hi Fi Europeans. It’s Mathias. Today I chat with Gustas from inrento who is a young serial Entrepreneur from Lithuania.

He just launched a new Lending platform with buy to let property that - on the face of it - doesn’t provide the insane returns we just got used to from other P2P platforms.

So you might ask. Why the heck should I continue listening? Well. It’s about more transparency, lower risk and aligned interest between platform, borrower and investor. 🤓 Full show notes and mentioned links on our website: http://bit.ly/fieurope139 🏄‍♀️