So close, we came so close! We almost made it to the magic number of an average dividend income of €1.000 / month (before taxes). Almost! But alas, it was not to be this year. Next year I bet you we will make it (if our dividend growth is any indication). Without further delay, here is our 2024 dividend overview! Dividend Income We saw pretty much continuous monthly records (ignoring the occasional special dividends) throughout 2024. Which is wonderful and very much motivational. It also means that the reinvesting of dividends is working and that monthly/quarterly dividends are increasing too. […]
Fun
The best way to see your money go up in smoke!
It is that time of year again that is feared most by cats and dogs: New Year’s Eve (or “Oudejaarsdag” in Dutch). The time of year when the Netherlands goes crazy and vaporizes about 118 Million Euros in the name of fun and tradition. It is by far the best way to see your money go up in smoke! How to vaporize money, a crash course. As a frugal family, we should obviously not spend any money on this non-sense. Don’t get me wrong, I (Mr. CF) still have a soft spot for fireworks (something to do with childhood memories). And […]
Taxes
Box 3 and your FIRE number
In the past (before I temporarily killed this blog back in 2020) I did yearly updates on Box 3 and what impact this had on the Cheesy Index. But it’s been a while since I looked at Box 3 and the impacts on our FIRE numbers. Something to do with our lifestyle inflation. But with all the fuss about Box 3 lately, and because I need to prepare a FIRE 101 presentation for the upcoming meetup, I figured it was time to give it another go. However, not just for me, but also for you my dear reader. So today […]
FIRE Meetup
FIRE Meetup February 2025
After the previous post of “how to organize a FIRE meetup“, and after the previous FIRE meetup in October in Leiderdorp, I have now teamed up with Ms. Hoefnix. And we have news for you! We have now planned FIRE meetup February 2025. See below for the details! Update 17-11-2024 – 21:30: We sold out Saturday in less than 4 hours, so we added a Sunday meetup too. Which we also sold out in a few hours. What the actual F… I’m so sorry for all those that were interested, but didn’t register yet. You can still find a place […]
FIRE Meetup
How to organize a FIRE meetup
In 2015 we started with Cheesy Finance, a year or two after we started our FIRE journey. We primarily did stuff online at the time. In 2016 we (a collective effort between us and Amber Tree Leaves) setup the (for us) first of quite a few meetups. With as a culmination a FIRE weekend in a castle in Landgraaf, Limburg, the Netherlands. I just discovered we already did 12 meetups (and one Castle event), with the upcoming one this weekend as nr 13. We hope to see you there of course! Having said that, we definitely do not have the […]
Dividends
Q3 2024 Dividend Update
Before reviewing the Q3 2024 Dividend Update, quick reminder that there will be another FIRE meetup on October 20th in Leiderdorp. Hope to see you all there of course! It’s been an entertaining 6 months since the last dividend update. I had actually been keeping track, but could find the time to make a post about it. There has been two attempts to un-fire ourselves in the mean time. One in Paris, and one in France and 5 neighboring countries. But both failed. I became a public servant, which is entertaining to say the least. One major take-away there, a […]
Finances , Fun , Travel
How to Un-FIRE yourself: part 3 – Tour de France!
Our history with trying to un-FIRE ourselves has been hit-and-miss. The Money-pit was definitely a big hit. The Paris trip was okay-ish. We tried, but were still fairly frugal overall. How did we do on our 4-week “Tour de France”. Let’s have a quick look in this edition of “How to Un-FIRE yourself: part 3 – Tour de France!”. Tour de France in Numbers The numbers: What was the plan and what did we do? We did an ad-hoc road trip. How ad-hoc? We only booked the first 4 nights before we left (about a week before) and nothing else. […]
FIRE Meetup
October 2024 Fire Meetup
Life has been fun (new post “How to un-fire yourself: France Road Trip” is pending) and entertaining lately, hence planning a meetup got put on the backburner. But I’ve been getting multiple emails to do one again. So, here are the details for the upcoming October 2024 Fire Meetup! Where? I’ve been scouting La Place locations for a while now. Finding one that is reachable by both public transport and car, has long opening hours, has enough space to facilitate 20-25 people sitting together and is not too far a drive for us (yes, I’m lazy), is surprisingly difficult! Hence, […]
Fun , Personal
Adult Life Bingo
A spoke with a colleague the other day about his new house. At some point he mentioned that his wife had completed the adult life bingo (“Grote mensen bingo”) this year. They had gotten their first kid, moved to a new house together and she landed a dream job. Their life was good and he was visibly happy. How do you win adult life bingo? His comment made me chuckle, but also triggered some thoughts about adult life bingo. What is on this bingo card? Or what should be on this bingo card? My guess is that the bingo card […]
Finances , Fun , Travel
How to Un-FIRE yourself: part 2 – Go to Paris!
In the docu-series how to un-fire yourself: Part 2 – go to Paris! A quick guide today how to un-fire oneself fast. It’s really not that difficult to be honest, one just needs to get him/herself to Paris for a few days and it magically happens by itself! How to Un-FIRE yourself It is surprisingly easy to Un-fire yourself. Buy a big house, buy spreadsheets for your finances or go to Paris. Today in this crash-course how to unload nearly €1.600 in just 5 days! How did we do that? Well, let’s have a look! Go to Paris! To start […]