About my blog
I'm a European moving from working life to retirement, and part of my income will come from my investments. Instead of paying a bank 1% a year to run a straightforward ETF portfolio, I manage it myself. This blog is where I write it all down: the setup, the numbers, what works and what doesn't. Real portfolio, real money.
No ads, no affiliate links, no paid contributions. Just my own opinion, and I'm not a finance professional. Hopefully that 1% doesn't start to look cheap. I'll let you know.
Start here
Part 1 - Portfolio objectives
June 6, 2026
My retirement portfolio objective: a 6% nominal return over 20 years, dropping to 3% income at a 5% or lower return. Built from 75% stocks, 10% bonds, and cash/gold, with five extra conditions: 40% EUR exposure, underweight US, overweight Asia and emerging markets, 2% distributions and no more than 10 products.
Part 2 - Which products do I want?
June 6, 2026
Turning my target allocation into actual ETFs means screening for five things: fund size and liquidity, low cost and tracking difference, physical replication, leading asset managers with well-known indices, and how transparent the provider is. These criteria then get layered onto my currency and regional constraints from Part 1.
My latest posts
Sequence of Returns Risk
August 11, 2026
Sequence of returns risk is the danger that poor investment returns early in retirement, combined with regular withdrawals, shrink your portfolio. This can produce poor outcomes in later years, including completely running out of money. Here's how it works, and what you can do about it.
Returns for stocks and bonds
August 1, 2026
What are stocks and bonds actually expected to return, region by region? History favours the US for stocks; current valuations favour Europe for the next decade. Bonds show fewer differences: European yields have caught up to US yields, but Eurozone inflation eats more of that nominal return. Asia and emerging markets offer no reliable trend.
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