Fortunately, neither of us really cares much about luxury items or status symbols. We buy things because they’re useful, not because of the logo that’s on them or because we want to impress other people.

No sports cars. No boats. No designer clothes or expensive jewelry. No €500 bottles of champagne.

That’s one of the reasons we’ve been able to save and invest a large part of our income over the years and make good progress towards FIRE.

That doesn’t mean we never spend money on luxury.

The difference is that we prefer buying the companies instead of buying their products.

For example, we own shares in Hermès and LVMH. They make and sell luxury products ranging from handbags and jewelry to champagne and fashion. What I like about these businesses is that they have incredibly loyal customers, high margins and strong balance sheets. Those are exactly the kind of companies I like to own.

The fact that both companies also pay a dividend makes them an even better fit for our long-term investing strategy.

Another thing I like is that these companies balance other parts of our portfolio quite well.

One of our larger holdings is 3i Group, an investment company whose biggest investment is Action. If you’re from Europe, there’s a good chance you’ve visited an Action store before. They’ve grown incredibly fast over the last decade and have recently started expanding into the US as well.

What’s interesting is that these businesses often perform well in different economic conditions.

When the economy weakens, consumers tend to become more price-conscious. Discount retailers like Action often perform well, which benefits 3i Group. During those same periods, demand for luxury products may soften, putting pressure on companies like Hermès and LVMH.

During stronger economic periods, the opposite often happens. Luxury spending increases, while discount retailers may experience somewhat slower growth.

Because these businesses are driven by different economic forces, their share prices don’t always move in the same direction. That helps reduce the overall volatility of our portfolio.

This is also one of the investing concepts we discuss with our children.

We want them to understand how different businesses perform throughout economic cycles and how those cycles can influence share prices.

And perhaps even more importantly, we teach them that so far we’d rather own luxury companies than simply buy their products.

We don’t have anything against luxury.

We just prefer owning the businesses that sell it.

So every time someone buys a luxury handbag, a bottle of champagne or a designer watch, there’s a small chance they’re helping to grow our wealth instead.

I think that’s the better deal.

For most people, payday means checking whether the salary arrived and then gradually spending it throughout the month.

For some, it also means finally making a purchase they’ve been putting off until there was enough money in the account.

For us, payday is mostly about money leaving our account again.

Long before we think about spending it, a large part of our income has already been assigned a different destination.

Over the years, we’ve built a system where a large part of our income is automatically transferred to savings and investment accounts on the very same day our salaries come in.

By the time I wake up tomorrow morning, 43% of our household income will already have left our current account.

Not because we’ve spent it, but because we’ve already decided where that money needs to go.

That may sound a bit extreme, but it is one of the reasons we’ve made steady progress towards financial independence.

This system wasn’t created because we’re exceptionally disciplined. Quite the opposite.

We’ve learned that good intentions are not a financial plan. If every month requires us to decide again how much to save, invest or spend, there is always something competing for that money. A holiday, a new gadget, a home improvement project or simply the temptation to postpone investing until next month.

Automating those decisions solved that problem for us.

Part of the money is transferred to savings accounts for expenses we know are coming sooner or later. School contributions, sports memberships, housing maintenance and local taxes aren’t surprises. We’d rather set money aside every month than suddenly have to find it when the bill arrives.

Another part is invested immediately. Every month, 21% of our income flows into our main dividend portfolio. We also contribute to additional retirement savings and investment accounts for our children.

This is what our salary allocation looks like on payday.

In total, around 43% of our income is automatically directed towards future goals before we really have the chance to spend it elsewhere.

The remaining money stays in our current account and covers groceries, insurance, transportation, utilities and all the normal expenses that come with family life. When an annual bill arrives, we simply pay it from the savings account that was built for exactly that purpose.

I realise this may sound overly structured to some people.

But for us it creates peace of mind more than anything else.

We know where we stand financially throughout the month. We rarely get surprised by predictable expenses and we never have to wonder whether we’re still making progress towards our long-term goals.

Perhaps the biggest benefit is that investing no longer depends on motivation.

The money is invested whether the market is up, down or going nowhere. It gets invested whether I’m optimistic, pessimistic or too busy to think about it.

Tomorrow evening I’ll probably be looking at which shares to buy with this month’s contribution to our dividend portfolio. I’ll also reinvest the dividends that accumulated over the past month.

The funny thing is that this month’s investment won’t change our lives.

Neither did last month’s. Or the one before that.

Yet when I compare where we are today with where we were when I bought my first shares nearly 20 years ago, those ordinary monthly investments have made all the difference.

That’s probably the least exciting part of investing. And also the most powerful.

I’m curious how others approach this.

Do you automate your savings and investments, or do you prefer making those decisions manually every month?

And if you do automate them, what percentage of your income is invested before you have the chance to spend it?

If you enjoy practical insights on dividend investing, FIRE and how we manage money as a family, consider subscribing below.

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A Simple System

Our strategy is simple.

We spend substantially less than we earn and automatically transfer money into savings and investment accounts. Every month, I use those new deposits, together with dividend income, to buy additional shares.

Sometimes I add to existing positions when prices are attractive. Sometimes I start a completely new position.

We’ve followed this system for almost 20 years, and it has helped us steadily build a substantial portfolio and a growing stream of dividend income.

The real secret isn’t discipline in the traditional sense. We’ve automated everything. The monthly transfers happen automatically, so investing requires almost no effort. In fact, it would take more effort not to invest because we’d have to cancel the transfers first.

Over those 20 years, there were only two times when we deviated from the plan.

Even though it was entirely our own decision, both times felt a little like cheating.

The Wedding, Honeymoon, and Move Abroad

The first time was about a decade ago, when several major life events happened at once.

We got married and went on our honeymoon. As you might expect by now, we had planned and saved for both well in advance.

At the same time, my wife graduated and I accepted a new position within my company. That meant moving to another European country.

We suddenly faced a long list of expenses. We had to rent an apartment, pay a security deposit, furnish it, and replace much of the furniture we’d accumulated during our student years.

None of the individual purchases were extravagant, but together they added up quickly.

To make matters worse, there was a three-month gap between the end of my old contract and the start of my new one. Our savings balance steadily declined, and eventually we decided to temporarily redirect two months of our normal investment contributions.

It wasn’t a large amount, but I still remember how uncomfortable it felt.

The decision was rational. The circumstances were exceptional. Yet it felt like breaking a promise to ourselves.

The Home Battery Investment

The second time happened very recently.

We have solar panels on our roof, but Dutch regulations are changing. As a result, many of the financial benefits of solar power will disappear, increasing our energy bill by an estimated €50 to €100 per month if we do nothing.

After consulting an energy advisor, we decided to install a home battery.

The battery stores excess solar energy generated during the day and makes it available when we need it later. It can also take advantage of fluctuations in energy prices by storing electricity when prices are low and using it when prices are higher.

In practice, it helps us consume more of our own solar production and reduce our reliance on the grid.

Why We Sold Shares

The total investment is about €5,500 after taking advantage of a subsidized government loan.

Combined with a dynamic energy contract, we expect the battery to reduce our energy costs by roughly €150 per month. That figure already includes loan repayments and interest costs.

In other words, the investment should generate approximately €1,800 per year in net savings.

That’s an expected return of more than 30% annually.

We certainly had sufficient cash savings available. But because the expected return was so attractive, we decided to sell some shares and use the proceeds to fund the project.

Of course, I expect those shares to generate good long-term returns. But I don’t expect them to generate 30% per year.

I was hesitant. Selling shares goes against a habit that has been deeply ingrained for almost two decades.

Yet this wasn’t simply an expense. It was an investment with attractive economics, an upgrade to our home, and a small contribution toward easing pressure on the electricity grid.

For us, that made the decision worthwhile.

What About You?

In nearly 20 years of investing, these were the only two times I sold shares and didn’t reinvest the proceeds.

How often do you deviate from your investment plan?

Have you ever sold shares to fund something else? If so, what was it?

Let me know in the comments.

After investing for nearly 20 years, I’ve read quite a few books on investing, personal finance, business and wealth building. Most were useful at the time, but only a handful genuinely changed the way I think about money and investing.

What I find interesting is that the lessons that stayed with me were not necessarily the ones that promised the highest returns or the most sophisticated strategies. Instead, they were the books that changed how I viewed businesses, risk, income and long-term wealth creation. Looking back, I can draw a direct line between some of the ideas in these books and many of the decisions that helped me build wealth over the last two decades.

These are not necessarily the seven best investing books ever written. They are simply the seven books that had the biggest impact on me personally.

A few of the books that helped shape how I think about investing after nearly 20 years in the market.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you buy through them, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you.

1. The Warren Buffett Way — Robert Hagstrom

If I had to pick one book that most closely resembles how I invest today, it would probably be this one. Before reading about Buffett’s approach, I tended to think about shares primarily as prices moving up and down on a screen. This book gradually shifted my focus away from stock prices and towards the underlying businesses.

The lesson that stayed with me was that investing doesn’t need to be complicated. Buffett’s framework is remarkably straightforward: buy understandable businesses, preferably with strong competitive advantages, capable management and predictable economics, and then hold them for a very long time. That sounds almost disappointingly simple, but in practice it goes against much of what the financial industry encourages people to do.

Over the years I’ve become increasingly convinced that simplicity is an advantage. Most of the wealth I’ve built did not come from finding obscure opportunities or constantly trading in and out of positions. It came from owning good businesses, continuing to invest through different market cycles, and allowing compounding to do what it does best. Buffett didn’t teach me how to find the next hot stock. He taught me that I probably don’t need to.

Interested in reading it? You can find it here.

2. Rich Dad, Poor Dad — Robert Kiyosaki

This is probably the most controversial book on the list. It receives plenty of criticism today and some of that criticism is justified. If you’re looking for a detailed framework for valuing companies or constructing a portfolio, you won’t find it here.

What the book did do for me, however, was change the way I thought about assets. Before reading it, I mostly viewed money through the lens of earning and spending. Kiyosaki introduced the idea that wealth is built by accumulating assets that generate income or increase in value over time, while avoiding liabilities that quietly consume future cashflow.

Looking back, I don’t think the book made me a better stock picker. What it did do was push me towards thinking like an owner and investor rather than purely an employee earning a salary. Sometimes a book doesn’t need to provide all the answers. Sometimes it just needs to make you ask better questions.

Interested in reading it? You can find it here.

3. Finding the Next Starbucks — Michael Moe

One reason I enjoyed this book is that it challenged me to think beyond mature blue-chip companies. While much of my portfolio has always been built around established businesses, this book introduced the idea that a small number of exceptional growth companies can have an outsized impact on long-term returns.

The central question is obvious but incredibly difficult to answer: how do you identify a company with the potential to become many times larger than it is today? Moe focuses on factors such as scalable business models, large addressable markets and management teams capable of executing ambitious growth plans.

Of course, finding the next Starbucks is much easier in hindsight than in real time. Most companies never become the next anything. Nevertheless, the book taught me what exceptional growth businesses tend to look like, and that knowledge has been useful throughout my investing journey. Even if you never find the next Starbucks, understanding what makes a business scalable is valuable in itself.

Interested in reading it? You can find it here.

4. Beating the Street — Peter Lynch

Peter Lynch remains one of my favourite investing authors because his ideas are both practical and accessible. One of his central arguments is that individual investors often underestimate the advantages they already have. We interact with products, services and trends every day, sometimes years before they become obvious to professional investors.

That idea resonated with me because investing opportunities rarely arrive with a flashing sign attached to them. More often they start with an observation: a retailer that is always busy, a product that suddenly seems to be everywhere, or a service that people genuinely love using.

What Lynch does particularly well is reminding readers that observation alone is not enough. A great product does not automatically make a great investment. You still need to understand the business, the financials and the valuation. The combination of curiosity and discipline is what makes his approach so powerful, and it is a lesson I’ve tried to apply ever since.

Interested in reading it? You can find it here.

5. The Cashflow Quadrant — Robert Kiyosaki

Although this book is often grouped together with Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I actually took away a different lesson from it. Instead of focusing on assets, it focuses on the different ways people earn income.

Kiyosaki divides income into four categories: Employee, Self-Employed, Business Owner and Investor. Whether you agree with all of his conclusions or not, the framework is useful because it forces you to think about where your income comes from and how scalable it really is.

For most of my career, my primary source of wealth creation has been investing. But the book helped me appreciate that increasing income can be just as powerful as improving investment returns. After all, every additional euro that can be invested becomes another employee working on your behalf.

The lesson I ultimately took away was not that everyone should start a business. It was that relying on a single source of income creates vulnerability, while multiple income streams create flexibility and options.

Interested in reading it? You can find it here.

6. The Intelligent Investor — Benjamin Graham

If Buffett provided the practical framework, Graham provided the foundation underneath it. This is one of those books that becomes more valuable the longer you invest.

The concept that stayed with me most is the margin of safety. In simple terms, don’t just think about potential returns. Think about what can go wrong and whether you are being compensated for taking that risk.

That lesson becomes particularly important during periods when markets become either euphoric or fearful. Share prices move far more than underlying business values, and investors often mistake volatility for risk.

One of Graham’s most valuable insights is that price and value are not the same thing. A falling share price does not automatically mean an investment has become riskier. Likewise, a rising share price does not automatically make it safer. You always have to consider both together.

Over the years, this way of thinking has helped me remain calmer during market corrections. When prices fall, I try to focus on what has changed about the business rather than what has changed on the screen.

Interested in reading it? You can find it here.

7. Blood in the Street — James Dale Davidson & Lord Rees-Mogg

Most investors understand this book’s central message intellectually. Far fewer are able to follow it emotionally.

The idea is straightforward: some of the best opportunities appear when fear is at its highest. When markets crash, headlines become relentlessly negative and investors begin to assume the future will be worse than the present.

That’s precisely when prices can become disconnected from long-term reality.

Looking back, some of my best investments were made during periods when sentiment was terrible. Not because I was smarter than other investors, but because I kept investing when many people stopped.

Of course, that’s much easier to say with the benefit of hindsight. Living through uncertainty feels completely different. When markets are falling and every headline predicts disaster, buying more shares rarely feels comfortable.

This book reinforced something I have seen repeatedly throughout my investing life: the moments that feel the worst emotionally often turn out to be some of the best opportunities financially.

Interested in reading it? You can find it here. Please note that this classic investing book is no longer in print, so you'll likely need to purchase a used copy.

The Common Thread

These books taught me a lot, but they weren’t the reason I built wealth. The reason was much less exciting.Buying shares. Reinvesting dividends. Staying invested during crashes. And repeating that process for nearly 20 years. The books shaped my thinking. Experience did the rest.

If there’s a book that had a big impact on your own investing journey, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

It was only €0.45.

Yet the smile on his face was bigger than when he receives many gifts.

That was the moment I realized that some of the most important lessons in our FIRE journey have very little to do with FIRE itself.

As you might have read in my previous articles, my wife and I have two children, and they are still relatively young and in primary school.

We are living a comfortable life despite our FIRE plans and relatively high savings rate. This is a conscious decision. We also want to enjoy life now, both for ourselves and for our children. They play sports, we regularly visit museums, and we take several vacations each year.

They are not aware of our FIRE plans yet, but they do know that we invest regularly, and we talk about investing from time to time. My oldest son even bought his first share last year through the Mom & Dad Bank. I created a nice formal-looking certificate, and we now regularly track the share price and company news together.

His smile is priceless whenever he receives his quarterly dividend, even though it is “just” €0.45.

Building Financial Habits

We also give our children pocket money so they can experience what it feels like to manage their own money, including occasionally making mistakes. As long as they learn from those mistakes and the amounts involved are small, I believe that is perfectly fine. It is much better to learn these lessons now than later in life when larger sums of money are at stake.

Teaching children to manage small amounts of money is important, but we also try to think much further ahead.

One of my core financial principles is setting aside money in advance for foreseeable large expenses. We do the same for the potentially high costs of higher education or university.

From the moment they were born, we have automatically invested €100 per month per child into a simple ETF investment account. These are relatively small amounts, and once the system is set up, it requires virtually no effort.

However, because the investment horizon is around 18 years, compounding does most of the heavy lifting.

Our oldest child recently turned nine, and his investment account has already grown to almost €18,000. We expect this amount to increase to roughly €35,000–€40,000 by the time he turns 18.

These education funds are also included in our FIRE Master Plan. We not only track their progress, but they also contribute to our path toward financial independence.

Without these funds, we would either need significantly more dividend income than we currently anticipate or delay financial independence until our children have completed their education.

We would much rather have the freedom to choose what we want to do by then, instead of being constrained by large future expenses.

By the way, we will not simply hand over this money when they start higher education.

They will be expected to figure things out for themselves and will most likely need to take on student loans if necessary.

However, we plan to tell them that if they complete their education within a reasonable timeframe, we will use these study funds to pay off their student debt.

This gives them a strong financial head start while avoiding the risk of simply handing over a large sum of money at a young age.

Today, they have no idea these study funds exist.

When they are a bit older, I will tell them about them.

I also see this as a powerful lesson in compounding. It shows how “just” €100 per month can grow into tens of thousands of euros over time.

That may ultimately be one of the most valuable financial lessons we can teach them.

More Than An Inheritance

Another important reason why we involve our children in conversations about money, investing, and financial independence is that we want them to be prepared for the responsibility that may eventually come with inheriting our investment portfolio.

Our plan is simple: live off the dividend income and never sell any shares. In fact, there is a realistic possibility that once we start receiving our pension benefits, our total income will be higher than what we actually need to cover our expenses. If that happens, we will likely continue adding to our portfolio, even while using part of the dividend income to fund our lifestyle.

Of course, a lot can change over the coming decades, but our goal is to build a portfolio that can support not only us, but potentially future generations as well.

That is why we believe it is just as important to pass on financial knowledge and responsible investing habits as it is to pass on financial assets themselves.

In the end, money can be inherited.

Financial wisdom cannot.

Do you have any money lessons that you would like to pass on to your own children?

That outcome did not happen by accident.

Most people have financial goals. They want to save more, invest more, pay off debt, or perhaps achieve financial independence one day.

The problem is that goals alone are not enough.

Just like you need a map to reach a destination, you need a plan to reach your financial goals. Without one, it becomes much harder to make consistent decisions and stay on track over the years.

Using the framework described below, we can estimate that our dividend income could cover our regular household expenses within about seven years, when I turn 50.

In this article, I will share how we designed our financial master plan and how we use it to monitor our progress.

Our plan is not based on extreme frugality or sacrificing everything today for a better tomorrow. Instead, we focus on balancing a comfortable family life with steady progress towards financial independence.

Monthly Income
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Monthly Expenses
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Annual Expense Buffers
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Monthly Surplus
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Investing & Saving
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Financial Independence

Step 1: Monthly Income & Expenses

Make sure you have a complete overview of your monthly income and expenses in a typical month. Be honest and comprehensive.

This doesn’t have to be extremely detailed. You do not necessarily need to know exactly how much you spend on coffee or ice cream every month. Of course, you can be that detailed if you are actively looking for opportunities to reduce expenses.

For the purpose of building a solid financial plan, it is usually sufficient to group expenses into categories such as Groceries, Housing, Transportation, and Insurance.

Don’t waste too much time debating which category a specific expense belongs to. As long as you have included all regular expenses, your overview will be accurate enough.

When you want to build wealth, it is essential that your expenses remain lower than your income. The difference creates a monthly surplus that can be used for saving, investing, or reducing debt.

Step 2: Regular Non-Monthly Income & Expenses

This is where I believe many people overlook important elements of their financial plan.

Besides your monthly income and expenses, you will probably also have quarterly, annual, or other irregular income and expenses.

Especially larger annual expenses are often predictable well in advance. If you know they are coming, why not prepare for them proactively by setting aside money every month?

Doing so may initially put some pressure on your monthly budget, but it provides a much more realistic view of your finances.

Otherwise, these expenses often come as an unpleasant surprise, forcing people to dip into their savings or temporarily pause their investments.

My wife and I use several dedicated savings accounts for exactly these types of expenses.

For example, we automatically set aside money every month for housing-related costs, separate from our mortgage payments and insurance premiums. This helps us cover major tax bills, maintenance, or repairs without disrupting our regular finances.

We do the same for annual expenses such as school contributions, service club memberships, and sports club fees.

Including these costs in your monthly budget may feel painful at first, but in the long run it gives you a far more accurate picture of your true financial situation. In our case, we effectively increase our monthly expenses by around 15% to build buffers for expenses that we know will come later in the year.

Our approach to FIRE is not based on extreme frugality. We live a comfortable life, go on holidays, participate in sports and social activities, and invest in experiences for our family. The goal is not to minimize spending at all costs, but to spend intentionally while still making steady progress towards financial independence.

Step 3: Assets & Liabilities

It is important to know exactly where you stand financially.

Make sure you have a complete overview of your assets and liabilities. Think about savings accounts, investment portfolios, retirement accounts, mortgages, student loans, and any other debts.

It is also useful to know the associated interest rates, expected returns, and repayment schedules.

We maintain an extensive Excel spreadsheet that provides an overview of all our financial assets and liabilities.

At the end of every year, we record the balances and compare them with previous years. This allows us to clearly see how our financial position develops over time.

Step 4: Allocate the Surplus

Once you know how much money you can realistically set aside every month, you need to decide where that money will be most effective.

As I mentioned in my previous article, I am a strong believer in automation. We therefore automate the transfers to our savings and investment accounts every month.

Many personal finance experts recommend maintaining an emergency fund equal to three to six months of living expenses. We do the same.

Even with careful budgeting, unexpected expenses will always occur. Having sufficient cash reserves prevents you from being forced to sell investments at an unfavorable moment.

After establishing a sufficient buffer, the next step is deciding where your surplus will generate the highest return.

Depending on your situation, that could mean:

• Paying down debt

• Contributing to retirement accounts

• Investing through a regular brokerage account

• Increasing savings for specific goals

Use your assets and liabilities overview to determine which option makes the most sense for you.

In our case, we first focused on eliminating debt with meaningful interest rates.

Today, the only debt we still carry is debt that we consciously choose to keep because of its favorable conditions: our mortgage and a remaining government-subsidized student loan.

The money we currently set aside each month is allocated as follows:

• Individual stock portfolio: 65%

• Extra retirement investment account (ETFs): 20%

• Investment accounts for our children: 10%

• General savings accounts: 5%

Please note that this allocation only applies to our remaining monthly surplus. It is separate from the money we already reserve each month for predictable annual expenses.

Step 5: Forecasting

Now that you know your current financial position and how your monthly surplus is allocated, you can start forecasting your financial future.

We include a simple forecast for each asset and liability in our spreadsheet.

Based on assumptions such as monthly contributions, interest rates, expected returns, and debt repayments, we estimate how each balance may develop over the coming years.

We also compare actual results against our forecasts so we can see whether we are ahead or behind our expectations.

In addition, we maintain a historical overview of our annual dividend income and a forecast for future dividend income.

The forecast is based on expected monthly investments, dividend reinvestment, and assumptions about future dividend yields and returns.

Probably not surprisingly, the projected dividend income grows significantly every year.

Based on our current assumptions, our annual dividend income could cover our regular household expenses within approximately seven years, when I turn 50.

By that time, I would have worked for roughly 25 years and would potentially have the option to retire almost 20 years before the official retirement age.

Whether I would actually stop working is another question. But having the freedom to make that decision yourself is incredibly motivating.

Conclusion

Creating a financial master plan does not require complicated software or advanced financial knowledge.

What matters most is having a clear overview of your income, expenses, assets, liabilities, and long-term goals.

Once you have that overview, you can make better decisions, track your progress, and stay focused on what truly matters.

I hope this article helps you gain more control over your finances and create an ambitious but realistic plan for building wealth and, perhaps, achieving financial independence well before traditional retirement age.

Do you have a written financial plan, or are your financial goals mostly in your head? I’d love to hear how you approach long-term financial planning.

Most people spend almost everything they earn by the end of the month. When their salary arrives, spending increases. As the balance on their bank account gradually decreases, spending slows down as well. By the end of the month, many people are close to zero—or even their credit limit.

If you are serious about building wealth, it helps tremendously to automate your monthly savings or investments and make sure they are transferred shortly after you receive your salary or other regular income.

However, if you are already used to spending your entire salary, this requires lifestyle changes. Otherwise, the end of your bank account will arrive much sooner than the end of the month.

That is why it is often easiest to start when you begin your career. Build your lifestyle around your income after your monthly savings or investment contributions have been deducted.

I understand that many of you may already be at a later stage in life. In that case, making a significant adjustment can feel difficult and may even prevent you from following through.

Fortunately, there is another trick that can be very effective, even if you currently spend 100% of your salary.

Every time you receive a salary increase—no matter how large or small—automatically allocate 50% of that increase to your savings or investment account.

The key is to do this before you have become accustomed to the higher income. If you never fully experience the additional money in your monthly budget, you are much less likely to miss it.

My wife and I have been doing this since I received my first full-time salary. Back then, our monthly investments were only a few hundred euros. Over time, however, this simple habit helped us increase our monthly contributions to more than a thousand euros, and today they are significantly higher.

Throughout my career, I have changed roles several times and occasionally received substantial salary increases. Each time, we applied the same principle.

A raise of €100 per month? We increased our automatic monthly investments by €50.

Of course, we also experienced major life changes, such as moving to another country and buying a house. During these transitions, we always created an overview of our expected income and expenses in the new situation. Based on that, we set automatic monthly contributions that were ambitious but still realistic.

Over time, this approach helped us consistently maintain a savings rate above 20% and often between 30% and 40% of my net salary.

In my experience, increasing your savings rate is often more powerful than trying to find the next great investment. While investment returns are never fully under your control, the percentage of your income that you save and invest largely is.

Whenever I mentor students or recent graduates at work, I always share these simple principles. They require very little effort, but over many years they can make an enormous difference.

It is worth mentioning that these monthly contributions are separate from our pension plans. My wife and I both have good employer-sponsored pension arrangements, so this money is invested in addition to our retirement savings.

Are you applying a similar strategy yourself?

I would love to hear your experiences in the comments.

Where It All Started

The first seeds of this journey were planted while I was studying Business Economics at university. I became fascinated by financial markets, investing, stocks, and bonds.

During my student years, I started investing part of the income from my side jobs into investment funds. Around the same time, I also began buying and reading books about investing and personal finance on a regular basis.

After graduating, I started working at a large global insurance company. My income increased substantially, and I gradually transitioned into investing in individual stocks as well.

Throughout my now nearly 20-year international corporate career, I have continued investing consistently.

Over time, my investment approach gradually evolved as well. Around 10 years ago, I shifted my focus more towards dividend investing, and roughly 5 years ago towards dividend growth investing specifically.

Investing While Building a Family

From the moment we started living together, my wife and I made a conscious decision: regardless of the stage of life we were in, we would continue investing every month.

We maintained that commitment after getting married and later continued doing so while raising our two children.

Not only did we maintain those investments, but over time we gradually increased them as our income grew.

At the same time, we have never pursued an extremely frugal lifestyle or sacrificed all enjoyment in the pursuit of financial independence.

We enjoy a comfortable — though not overly luxurious — lifestyle in Western-Europe, while consistently prioritizing long-term investing alongside it.

The Ultimate Goal

My long-term goal is to achieve financial independence and eventually retire early — what many people refer to as the FIRE movement.

For me, financial independence is not just about money.

It is about freedom, flexibility, and having greater control over how I spend my time. It also means becoming less dependent on employers and having more freedom to focus on the things that truly matter to me.

One of those things is charity and giving back to others. Financial independence would allow me to dedicate even more time and resources to that as well.

I aim to achieve this by steadily building a large investment portfolio that generates enough dividend income to support our lifestyle.

Not by chasing “get rich quick” schemes or investing in risky ultra-high-yield stocks, but by consistently owning high-quality companies that generate reliable and growing dividend income over time.

Progress Towards the Goal

As I will share in future posts, the beginning is always the hardest part. Building wealth takes time, discipline, patience, and consistency.

However, once your portfolio and dividend income stream become more substantial, compounding starts to work more powerfully and growth begins to accelerate.

Today, we have built a well-into-six-figures investment portfolio that already generates enough annual dividend income to cover 2.6 months of our family’s living expenses based on our current comfortable lifestyle. If we were intentionally willing to live more frugally, that number could already be stretched closer to roughly 3.0 to 3.5 months.

Currently, 100% of that dividend income is reinvested, which further accelerates the portfolio’s growth.

While we are certainly not financially independent yet, seeing that passive income stream grow year after year remains highly motivating.

Why I Started Writing on Substack

I am excited to share my experiences and lessons learned on the journey towards full financial independence.

My ambition is to write regularly about a wide range of topics, including:

• dividend growth investing,

• long-term wealth building,

• personal finance,

• lessons and mistakes from our own journey,

• portfolio updates,

• and the investments I make along the way.

I hope these articles will not only document my own journey, but also help and motivate others who are working towards financial independence themselves.

If you are also interested in long-term investing, dividend growth, and the path towards financial freedom, feel free to subscribe and follow along on the journey.

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