Real Estate , Taxes

Real Estate Investing is under attack in the Netherlands

Catchy title, eh? But it is true! Today an short assessment why real estate Investing is under attack in the Netherlands. Why it is happening, why it is (partially) a good thing and why it is a sign to run for the hills. Dutch Real Estate Market The Dutch Real Estate market was red hot until about early 2022. Cheap mortages and high demand made for an explosion in housing prices. Pretty much the same as what happened in most of the world during the period 2017-2021. Now, real estate investors obviously made use of this (as did we, albeit […]

Fun

The Church of FIRE

A golden oldie, from the archieves (but slightly updated)! One that is worth reposting on the renewed blog. I’m a disciple of the Church of FIRE. I stick to its 10 commandments and rarely sin. Some say we are a cult, some say we are crazy & doomed, but we have faith in money! Oh, and our holy drink is brewed with love, just so you know. The Church of FIRE In case you are not familiar with the Church of FIRE. It is all about worshipping the mighty $ (or €/£/Etc.), its investment potential and it’s compounding effects. This elixir […]

Personal

Koos Werkeloos

Koos Werkeloos. Not sure what this directly translates to in English, but something like “Joe unemployed” probably. Unemployed I am! Mrs. CF is currently the family’s sole breadwinner. Why Unemployed? Why am I unemployed? Currently two reasons. I had a good gig going as an independent contractor, but unfortunately the project got shelved and I could not continue. There is still a chance that the project gets restarted, but no news so far. Still hoping that it does, would be fun and involve some international travel to places where it is a lot warmer than Dutch winters. But the chances […]

Personal , Real Estate

Un-FIRE yourself – a crash course

How to Un-FIRE yourself – a crash course. There are many ways to UN-FIRE oneself. By far the easiest one is to buy a house that is way too expensive. And that is exactly what we did! You can too 😉 It’s so great to be able to provide this useful financial information with a restarted blog! The Cheesy Index I’ve revived the Cheesy Index again, and… it is a bloodbath! We used to be able to get around with about €29.000-33.000 per year (we had little to no mortgage payments and are frugal most times). With the new money […]

Dividends

2022 November Dividend Update

Welcome to December! Yup, I’m bringing these back. Not because we are actively investing in dividends shares, because we don’t (all cash is going to a money pit!). What I do like to showcase is the organic growth from a legacy portfolio started in 2015/2016, with no contributions since! For more history on what & how, see also our dividend portfolio page, this explains some other graphs below. Without further ado, here is the 2022 November Dividend Update. Dividend Income November is typically a very slow month as you can see in the graph below (relatively few companies distribute dividends […]

Real Estate

Being a landlord sucks

There are moments when I hate being a landlord. This make me doubt whether investing in real estate was a smart idea (spoiler alert: it was – but it might not continue to be). I have been debating lately if we should continue what we are doing, or if we should sell and move on to other investments. Albeit no definite decision has been made, I’m leaning towards selling a portion of the portfolio. Tenants We actually have great tenants! And perhaps surprisingly enough they are not the issue, to date we have never had any real issues with tenants. […]

Personal

How to restart a blog?

I have no good idea honestly. I do know that I won’t put everything back that I wrote in the past, but what do you want to see? Or what would you like to see coming back? The Plan To be fair, there is no real plan. But after Twitter went completely down the drain (it always has been a bit of a drain to be honest), I wanted to make sure I had a place left as a legacy for Cheesy Finance where I can think out loud and have some fun. What I have done so far is […]

Personal

We are back!

We are back, but it will be different from the previous years for sure. Why? Well, we moved and are trying to convert our money pit into a family home. This takes up an enormous amount of time, which together with maintaining our other real estate doesn’t leave much time for other things at the moment. Stay tuned!