Hi friends,
Today I have an unusual post for you.
This post is a call to action for you to join me in a project that has been sitting in the back of my mind for almost a couple of years. I think time has come for a public kick off.
Say welcome to the:
European Early Retirement Guide
Are you excited?
Do you want to know more?
Ok, let’s get started!
The original idea was to start a series of posts “Early Retirement in XYZ“, where I would explore the nuances of retiring early in country XYZ: taxes, cost of living, specific investment opportunities, real estate market, visa problems, crime rate, side hustling opportunities, health care an so on.
First two countries I would have explored are Italy and Switzerland, of course. I would have then asked other bloggers and FIRE seekers around Europe to write a guest post on my blog for other countries. As many European countries as possible. Given my shortlist of FI friends, I think we can easily cover 15-20 countries. With some extra effort and word of mouth we could cover most of Europe, if not all of it. Yes my dear friends from Andorra, Lichtenstein, Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City, you can contribute too!
But I want to step up and create a guide, a physical guide! À la “Lonely Planet”. Something with pictures, ratings, graphs, suggested attractions (frugal things to do) and so on. Something which is informative, accessible, beautiful and fun.
I will still run the guest posts series on my blog, so please volunteer before I come bugging you. You know you’re in my shortlist. Don’t look around, my finger is pointing to you! I know, you may be thinking “well, there are other FI seekers/bloggers in my country…” but NO, that’s not the right way to start. We need more contributions from big and popular countries like Germany, France, Italy, Spain… we might also have some city/region specific variables that we want to gather. So don’t be scared, please volunteer! And if you’re the only one blogging in… say… Serbia… you’re automatically volunteered in 😉
And now for something more concrete. I have ideas but nothing is written in stone yet.
Please follow me, this direction 🙂
Table of Contents
- European Early Retirement Guide
- What I want to do
- Why I want to do it
- What exactly I want to produce as output
- Why a Book?
- Why I think this guide is important
- What’s out there on this topic today?
- What I need
- What’s my Role in this project
- Business Model
- Why I’m not a moron who wants to become rich with this guide
- How jealous I am of my idea
- What goes into a country review
- Guide Name
- Deadlines
- What do we do now?
- You’re crazy RIP, do you realize how much work it requires?
What I want to do
A guide for everyone in Europe (or looking for European opportunities) with as many details as possible for as many countries as possible. Details regarding how good country XYZ is for the following phases of life:
- Phase 1: education / skill building.
- Phase 2: work / accumulation phase.
- Phase 3: side hustling / entrepreneurship / active (early) retirement.
- Phase 4: real retirement / withdrawal phase.
Why I want to do it
Because I think it’s important and I perceive a strong demand for it and almost no offer.
Because it’s fun and forces interactions within the FI community in Europe. It’s a community effort!
Because I think it’s an awesome idea.
What exactly I want to produce as output
An e-book. Distribution is still to be defined. Price point is to be defined. Ideally as low as possible, just enough to cover production/publishing costs.
A physical book. That’s a stretch goal. But… who knows? Maybe the guide becomes so popular that it ends up in every bookshop all around the world!
A free PDF. Mine is not meant to be a commercial idea. I just want to see this f***ing guide out. It would be my single biggest professional accomplishment in life so far. And I want to make it freely accessible (free as in “free beer”) for those not willing to pay for the e-book or the physical book. No question asked. No email signup trap.
A post series on my blog. Original country reviews will appear on my blog, of course. Enjoy! No, wait, not yet… we need volunteers first!
A website. Maybe the best we can do is to put all the information on a website.
Why a Book?
Because I want something high quality, higher than the sum of the individual guest posts.
Because I want to learn about book publishing.
Why I think this guide is important
Because there’s strong demand, and information is sparse and incomplete. Take a look at these threads on r/financialindependence, r/EuropeFIRE, r/eupersonalfinance:
- What European countries have you considered as possible FIRE locations? (400+ comments)
- Anyone life-hacking Europe? (this is exactly the question I plan to answer)
- Expenses and FI Numbers in Europe (lots of info and links)
- How much money do you need for financial independence in your country? (lots of info)
- Country choice: CH, AT, FR, UK? (LOL Switzerland)
- I compared high-paying incomes for 7 countries to see where you can FIRE earliest (not only EU)
- Best country to incorporate SaaS business (focusing on business, but still relevant)
- Why I’m Moving Abroad and Starting a New Life (Style) (just a blog post, but it shows relevant questions I want to answer in the guide. This one is also gold from the Canny Contractor)
What’s out there on this topic today?
That’s not much on the interwebz today:
- Some cost of living calculator like Numbeo, Expatistan.
- Life Quality indexes like OECD better life index, global liveability index.
- Entrepreneur and tax resources like accountancyineurope, nomadifiscali (in Italian language, it means “tax nomads”).
- Frugal Vagabond’s “retire abroad” series
Those are individual resources, not easy aggregate-able and comparable.
What I need
- A brainstorming team. My idea is not finalized yet and I want it to be demolished and stress tested as long as improved, extended and brought to the next level. The brainstorming team will meet few times over skype (or any other VC tools) and there will probably be some async communication via mail. Wait before volunteering here: I’m going to check my closest FI friends first. Yes, I’m looking at you, friends from FIWE!
- A judge team. My idea (subject to change in brainstorming phase) is to give “star ratings” or something similar to each aspect of each country (education, quality of life, cost of living, work/accumulation, hustling, retirement) to make for some comparison. I need judges. I expect judges to be same folks from brainstorming team, but I’m open to new entries here. I’d like someone who grew up, worked and lived in more than one country.
- A publishing/marketing team. We need to produce a cover, some nice pictures, images, graphs and so on. Then editing, typesetting, proofreading and so on. Then some way to spread the words once it’s launched, a website where to publish regular updates… it’s a lot of work. I need you! Please volunteer here! My graphics and self publishing skills are close to ZERO, but I want to learn as much as possible. I expect to get some help, but I’m also willing to compensate professional work here.
- Country specialists. I want to cover as much of Europe as I can. Please volunteer. If you’re a FI blogger, the best way to volunteer is to write a guest post on my blog filling a “country review” for a country where you lived, studied, worked, hustled or retired in. Even partial country reviews are more than welcome! Did you work for 2 years in Lichtenstein? Awesome, let us know! The country review format is not defined yet, that’s one of the main goals of the brainstorming team. Also if you’re not a regular blogger and want to help us, please do! I can interview you and publish your contribution!
What’s my Role in this project
I’m the project’s benevolent dictator for life 🙂
I’ll be leading the project, coordinating efforts, making it happen.
I will also be part of all the teams (brainstorming, judge, marketing/publishing), and the country specialist for both Italy and Switzerland.
I’ll be writing an intro, and maybe other portions of the guide.
I’ll do my best to make it fun too 🙂
Business Model
I don’t have a budget for the project yet, but I’m personally willing to put my money where my mouth is. I’m willing to finance production costs like editing, graphics, proofreading and so on.
Essentially I’ll be the book’s publisher. Of course, any help is more than welcome. I’d love to get help from graphic designers, editors etc.
Financial contributions to the project are also welcome. Fundraised money will be the first returned in case of a “profit”. Ok, it’s getting confusing. The financial aspects of the project will be defined in the brainstorming phase. Maybe we’ll switch to a kickstarter / patreon / donations model. I don’t know yet. I’m not really interested in the financial outcome of the project.
On the country reviews side, I want to aggregate so many collaborators that’s impossible to remunerate all of them. Someone might be, but it’s not guaranteed.
I’ll donate profits (after costs coverage) to a charity still to be defined. I’ll finalize this decision together with the “judges”.
Why I’m not a moron who wants to become rich with this guide
- I won’t be earning a dime, just hoping to cover publishing costs.
- I will share any extra earning (after covering publishing costs) with contributors. My share will go to a charity yet TBD.
- The book price will be as low as possible.
- There will also be a free PDF
The “business model” of this project has not been finalized yet, I’m willing to accept suggestions. Again, I don’t plan to make money on it.
How jealous I am of my idea
Not at all!
If you want to do something similar, or take this idea and implement it on your own I’m totally fine!
If you want to use country reviews that will appear on this blog on your “better-than-RIP’s European early retirement guide”, please do! Maybe ask for permission to the contributor if you’re “getting inspired a lot” by a guest post.
I want to see this happening, I don’t want to take credits. If you’re better organized, faster and with more resources please go ahead and do it. Even better: get in contact with me. Maybe we can go further and faster if we work together 😉
One extra request: if you want to implement this idea alone (and faster than me) please don’t prevent me to implement my own version via copyright and legal stuff. That’s something that would piss me off. This idea is sitting on the back of my mind since two years at least. It started in a different shape but now I’ve been hit by a “that’s how it should be done!” punch in my stomach, and that’s it. It has to be done. I want to see it implemented. What would piss me off would be not being able to see my idea properly implemented.
What goes into a country review
My initial idea was to limit the focus only on early retirement, trying to answer the question “is this country a good geoarbitrage candidate?” for each country. I considered aspects like taxation, cost of living, housing market, visa issues and so on.
But why limit ourselves just to early retirement?
“RIP, because your guide is called European Early Retirement Guide…”
Yes, ok, good point. Well… first, the guide name is not yet finalized. Second, early retirement should not be the end goal of anyone’s game. Third, nobody splits their life in accumulation phase and withdrawal phase. You might want to slow down at work, aim to lean fire, try barista fire for a bit, take a mini retirement, plan for a multistage retirement where you side hustle hard for a while until real retirement, and many other scenarios. We, humans, want to be productive no matter what. What’s the point of early retiring in country XYZ if there you can’t realize your dreams?
I extended my idea to include more aspects of a country support for a fulfilled and productive existence: education, work/employed, work/entrepreneur, retirement.
A temporary/tentatively list of aspects I’d like to cover for each country review:
- Geography: some basic info about the country like extension, population, territory (mountains? Sea? Ocean?), weather and climate.
- Education quality & costs: is education free? Is it good quality? is there any excellence?
- Cost of living: few scenarios, city and rural areas. Needs vs wants. Highlights (childcare, healthcare, transportation, housing…)
- Work opportunities: Main companies, sectors, average salaries, workweek length, part time opportunities and so on.
- Bureaucracy annoyances: how easy/complicated is to survive the bureaucracy jungle. Highlights and lowlights.
- Banking system: can you live without ever visiting a physical bank (like I do in Switzerland since 6 years)? How easy is to wire money? How paperless is the process? Which shitty fees or taxes do they have? What’s the name of the top bank(s)?
- Visa: kind of visas, immigration laws, citizenship, requirements and so on.
- Taxes: income taxation, profit taxation, wealth taxation, dividend taxation, capital gain taxation, regional differences in taxes, other tax saving tips and so on. Inheritance taxes.
- Healthcare: what’s the healthcare model? Implications for workers and not workers.
- Family Friendly & Childcare: how being single vs couple vs family with children impacts your plans. What about taxes? What about childcare expenses?
- Retirement Locations: recommended places where to retire within the country.
- Early Retirement: suggested Fi number, threshold for leanfire and fatfire. Feasibility of baristafire and so on. Impact of taxes on your strategy.
- Welfare: are there a social security obligation/benefits? What about unemployment?
- Political Scene: is there a civil war going on? What about political stability? Is nationalism and populism ruling your country too? Which risks do you foresee in next 5/10 years?
- Crime Rate: is it safe to hang around?
- Diversity: are diversities in gender / ethnicity / political view / race / religion / age / favorite soccer team accepted? Tolerated? Forbidden?
- Weird laws: is it forbidden to wear a hat on Saturday/Sunday? am I forced to wear a clock on Wednesday? Can my wife drive a car? Can my dog be served in a restaurant?
- Side Hustling: how (bureaucratically) easy/hard is to start a company? What kind of company can I create? What are the tax implications? What about obligations? How good is the country for digital nomads?
- Pension System: how does it work? Should I contribute? Which options do I have? Will I get something back if I leave the country after X years?
- Housing Market: should I rent or buy my primary residence? Can you give an overview of renting and purchase prices in few scenarios (rural, small town, big city)? Is the country good for real estate investments? What are the risks, rules, tax implications of renting out an apartment?
- Financial Investing: which brokers are accessible? Banks? Which securities are accessible? Which not? How dividends and capital gains are taxed?
- Frugality Tips: country specific frugality tips.
- Wealth Tips: implications of having money abroad, fiscal residency, how to avoid declaring your status and tell people what you do and so on.
- Fun Facts: fun facts about the country, better if related to money, spendypants habits, touristic traps to avoid, stupid false myths everybody believe and so on.
- Town(s) / Region(s) specific Highlights/Lowlights: Is there a specific region/town worth mentioning for any good/bad reason?
- Miscellaneous: internet quality, anti-touristic attractions (frugal things to do), connectedness with the rest of the world (low-cost flights, railways), country specific issues and so on.
- External Resources: links to other sites like Numbeo and so on.
- Star Ratings: what’s the overall quality of the country? Rate the country for education / accumulation / hustling / retirement. Final thoughts.
As you can see, many aspects I proposed overlap. Anyway, nothing is written in stone. I hope brainstorming will help finalizing the list. Maybe my list is too rich, maybe we decide it’s unfeasible to cover so many aspects with the right level of details.
That’s not all: the information we’re going to gather for each country should be double checked and backed by verified sources. We don’t want to publish false or misleading content. That makes the project even more gargantuan.
Guide Name
That’s up for discussion. For now the project is named EERG (European Early Retirement Guide).
Final name still to be decided.
Early Retirement European Guide (EREG)? Guide for Early Retirement in Europe (GERE)? GREG? GREG is cool but I don’t have an acronym.
I’m also open to some funny names that mock other famous guides like “Retirely Planet” or “Le Guide Retir’d“, but we may hit some copyright wall 🙂
Deadlines
I don’t put a deadline on this project, of course. Got a job, a blog, a family, friends and other activities.
Just as an out of the envelope attempt to put a timeline on the project:
- Oct 2018: Brainstorming phase. Idea finalized, Judge team finalized, country review defined, list of country specialists in good state, budget defined, financial aspects defined, publishing needs defined.
- Nov 2018 – Mar 2019: Country reviews and ratings.
- Apr-June 2019: Publishing iterations and final reviews. I expect the publishing process without a real publisher to be both painful and fun. Editing, design, typesetting, proofreading, graphic content production… Plus we might need some iteration on country reviews and star ranking. We might want to add intro, conclusions, some success stories and whatnot.
- Summer 2019: Launch! And parties, and champagne, Pulitzer prize, Nobel prize, you name it!
What do we do now?
I’ll spread the word. I’m waiting to hear your voices. I’ve setup a public Trello board for the project. Once we have finalized what goes into a country review I’ll work on Italy and Switzerland reviews. If you’re planning to contribute on Italian and/or Swiss country reviews please let me know: I can incorporate your contribution. I’ll actually come bothering you if I think you’re more expert than me on Italian investing or on French-Speaking Swiss Cantons.
If you have something to say, any complaints, you think it’s a bad idea, you think it’s an impossible project, you think it’s useless and a waste of time… please comment below. The best you can do is helping me improve my idea or convincing me to quit it.
If you think it’s a valid idea, and you want to see it happening, you can do several things: the most important one is to spread the word by sharing this post. I need a lot of help. If you plan to spontaneously contribute on country XYZ please contact me. I’ll come bothering you anyway if you’re in my shortlist.
The project won’t start if I don’t get enough help.
I’ll be fine anyway, don’t worry: I’d only regret not having tried.
You’re crazy RIP, do you realize how much work it requires?
I know that if the project kicks off it will be another full time job on my plate. Coordinating ~100 people (not all at the same time, though), 99% of whom lives in other countries and 100% of whom conducts an already rich and complicated life. I’m aware that I’ll be working on this project at 5am every day, and spending many evenings on it at the expense of family and sleep time. I know that the day is still made of 24 hours, it refuses to adjust with inflation!
But as Paul Graham says:
I realized recently that what one thinks about in the shower in the morning is more important than I’d thought. I knew it was a good time to have ideas. Now I’d go further: now I’d say it’s hard to do a really good job on anything you don’t think about in the shower.
And now it’s too many showers after I started thinking about it. Maybe I’m committing too much, let’s see. So far my commitment matches my enthusiasm 🙂
Have a nice day!
Hi RIP,
I love your idea. I can tell you everything you want about Romania and Belgium, I know them inside out, especially from the personal investments point of view. Ironically I have also worked in Liechtenstein for 1 year, but of course I would not take the responsibility of writing about it 🙂
If you need more help around other areas, like brainstorming, or honestly quite anything, just give a shout-out.
I am sure this project will succeed!
Caruta, thank you so much for your offer 🙂
I’ll add yourself to the shortlist for Romania and Belgium!
That’s the kind of feedback I want <3
I support your project and am interested in this as well, that’s why I compiled that Expenses and FI Numbers in Europe spreadsheet.
For Romania a comprehensive study has been done and was published last year https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/27874
Shout-out to Mr Caruta Cu Bani, he pointed me in the right financial direction for my return to Romania so I can vouch that he knows what he is talking about!
If other European countries have similar studies that were undertaken the compilation of data will be easier. The best source for EU statistical data is https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat
As an idea, when everything will be done a geodatabase can be created that can be queried and it can be presented in a StoryMap similar to this https://storymaps.esri.com/stories/terrorist-attacks/ (I’m a cartographer so of course the first thing that popped into my head was a map)
Cheers
Astrofire88, it was in my intention to contact you asap 🙂
You have amazing ideas, I want you onboard! Are you in for brainstorming together?
(fun fact: at Hooli I’ve been working on Geo for a while, and I’ve developed several tools. One of it is a visualizer of a DB query on top of a map, if the table has s2 geometry fields)
With pleasure of course. You can also add me on the Luxembourg shortlist. I work here for the last 3+ years.
I also have the enterprise edition of doodly (https://www.doodly.com/ ). We can make great marketing (pitch) materials with it.
I, like all others, have also other possible interesting ideas that would be difficult to express just in a message. I think it would be nice to have at some point a brainstorming session with as many persons as possible to capture the ideas and then categorize them and see which are feasible and realistic.
Honestly, I would like to contribute as much as possible as I currently working on doing something like this for Romanians. However, your project goes further so I would put all my efforts and knowledge into yours.
Maybe I am too optimistic about it, but I think the project cannot be other than successful. The contributors will be a bunch of persons doing what they love most, with zero monetary desires and which are very close to FIRE. Nothing could stop us 😉
your words are refreshing and motivating!
Thank you for your support 🙂
Added to marketing, added to Luxembourg 🙂
I need time to collect all the responses I’ve received here, on reddit, on Facebook, on Twitter, via mail, via PMs. I’ll be back to you (all).
Thank You for the special shout out. I would say that I am in, but it seems I am automatically volunteered so won’t bother 🙂 Will take the role with pride.
To be honest, I had the idea of the same series, just was missing three things. The decision to focus on the world or “just” Europe (have problems with thinking big), and of course deciding if the name should be WOF (WorldOnFire) or fEUer (no explanation needed I think). The second thing I was missing is a framework the topics which should be covered, I think you covered this pretty much with the list above. And last the contributors whom I should have hunt down one-by-one myself. Your call to action would do this much more efficiently, so yes, let’s join our forces and set the world on FIRE.
I already have some random ideas, will shoot them towards you. I also see this as an opportunity for personal gains on so many levels. Widening our mindsets, networking, learning about each others country, and especially learning about our own through research (not sure about others, but I have no clue about many points on that list).
Let’s makes this happen!
You know what? You just volunteered for the Brainstorming team too 😀
My big idea to help you with this project was to put you in touch with HCF. I thought I would be doing so much good for the world. Turns out, I am late to the party. Good Luck guys!
Thank you, my friend. This is another sign this project will be a success. When OthalaFehu points people to my direction unexpected good things happen 😉
You’re definitely not late to the party… we need more help!
You can help us by spreading the word, helping on the language side, and – since I love your funny writing style – help making it a funny guide!
But more important, who doesn’t need a ranger/assassin level 22??
Hi,
Good idea.
I can contribute for Germany, even so I find it always a little bit exhausting to write in English. But I guess, I could give it a try.
Bye Gisela
Author of Financial Freedom – a book with talks with people who made it (mostly in Germany) – that’s why I’m considered an expert (-;
Hi Gisela, that’s amazing! Thanks for your help 🙂
We’ve not finalized “what goes into a country review” yet, but my list of topics is a good start.
This is a great idea! I’d love to see that guide made. Feel free to let us if we can be of any help.
Cheers!
Mr. Lyn
Thanks for your offering, I’ll come to you when we have a clearer idea 🙂
Do you need an IT team? I could create the website for the project.
And have you thought about an app (Could be only Web or also Android/iOS)? Something like: https://nomadlist.com/
All the best,
Nathanael
Holy shit, that’s the kind of help I totally need!
thank you Nathaneal, I’m adding you to the IT team 🙂
I’ll come to you after brainstorming… or maybe during brainstorming 🙂
RIP, this is a great idea. Some suggestions:
* We would be happy to provide support regarding Spain and Germany.
* Before writing a formal book, I would suggest to create a Wiki. The Wiki would make very easy to allow many people to edit at the same time, and to make everything visible. The Wiki could be similar to the Bogleheads’ or the Wikibooks:
* https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Outline_of_Non-US_domiciles
* https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX
* Afterwards the book could be written, hopefully just copy and paste from the Wiki. Ideally with an automatic script…
* Regarding the book, using LaTeX to generate PDF files is quite professional, although somehow complex and therefore perhaps not the best choice.
* A PDF or Word file could be printed on-demand by Amazon (specifically by its subsidiary Createspace). The author does not pay anything in advance. Amazon/Createspace gets 8 euros per book, plus VAT. A book could be sold by 9 euros, as long as there is no profit for the author. Very easy and free for the author.
* The PDF could contain many links, and they are not visible in the physical book. Selling the PDF is a good choice. It can be done with Pay Hip (www.payhip.com). The PDF could be sold by 0.60 euros, the cost of the service. Also very easy and free for the author.
* I wanted to publish an eBook, but this format is different to anything else. It is difficult to learn, to edit, and to import from other format. If somebody knows how to make it easy, I would like to know 🙂
* A possible acronym: HERE, Handbook of Early Retirement in Europe.
Thank you so much Willyfog, that’s a gigantic list of ideas!
I’m booking all of them and probably will make a post with a follow up idea list and FAQ.
Two quick things:
* the wiki suggestion seems the most popular one, with few variations (github repository, app, website with calculators). I was reluctant because… a wiki scares those who are not into FI, it’s too (don’t say that) nerdy, it’s too… (don’t say that, don’t!) it’s too GERMAN (shit, you said that). I want to make something fun and entertaining too 🙂 But your idea of having a wiki as a base and then eventually produce something on top of it is probably the best one.
* HERE is a nice name, adding to the candidate list 🙂
MrRIP says:
October 3, 2018 at 4:52 pm
Haha, why is a wiki too much german?
Anyway, for your fun part: why do not having an interactive map of Europe with checkboxes/radio buttons for:
* language (english/)
including local community of UK, IT, A, CH, DE, FR, BE, …
* activities in close proximity (theater/opera/cinema/activity parks)
* living costs between 0 and 10 000 €
or more detailed income tax, insurance, …
and then the magic map outlines spots/regions of the map where to retire/start your fire progress.
I know you want create a book, but this came to my mind, when you said I want something fun.
Hi!
Here a fellow from Italy. Interesting project!
I can contribute to Italy guide in areas like university, pension and personal investments with my experience.
You have my mail, let me know! 🙂
Thank you so much, adding you to my shortlist!
Where from Italy (if you don’t mind sharing)? 🙂
Hi
Great idea. I am quite new to the community (not to the topic itself) and I would offer to contribute. My specialities (countrywise) are Switzerland and Austria and now both systems (tax, pension, cost of living, real estate market, salaries, insurance, education etc.) well enough. However, my hands-on skills regarding publishing and marketing are exactly zero. If you are intrerested or if you have some questions, hit me a message.
Best, Rufio
That’s awesome, thanks for volunteering 🙂
I’ll come back to you (all) once the core ideas are fixated, after brainstorming.
I guess Romania would be covered pretty nicely. Germany->Romania herby too 🙂
In fact we might need to revive our secret plan to start a FIRE community with cool people in Romania… Just today somebody from UK told me he wants to FIRE to RO.
FIWE 2019 (may/june/july 2019, Budapest) could be focused on EERG. In fact, we could select only people who bring the details bout a specific country or country combination. That would add 25 articles/chapters/papers instantly. What do u think?
Yes, apparently there are lots of people from Romania but you know I need you 🙂
FIWE 2019 EERG themed? that’s a wet dream, please don’t wake me up!
GREG = Gargantuan Retire Early Guide =)
Hahaha love it! Adding to guide name candidates 😀
Hi RIP!
I LOVE this idea!! I am new to the community but would love to contribute to the Spanish part along with Willy Fog and Mr Lyn.
I’d love to volunteer for the brainstorming part but October is really packed (and I am in the US so time difference doesn’t help). You can count me in for anything you need from November onwards.
So excited to see this happening and grow the FIRE community in Europe!
Best,
Mrs Lyn
Thank you for the kind words and the volunteering 🙂
Added you to the shortlists!
Hey, nice idea! I can try to help with Portugal and Belgium, but I’m really at the start of my “life” and “FIRE objective”. But better than nothing.
Cheers 😉
Awesome! thanks Daniel!
I’ll back to you 😉
You’re crazy. I’m in!
Sign me up for Denmark! Born and raised, and lived in the happiest country (and the highest taxed) of the world for the last 35 years. I’m fairly new to the FIRE community, but I’m a fast study 😉
I love the acronym “HERE”, but I feel the need to point out that that was the name of Nokias GPS Map service…Don’t know if it still exists though.
Great! Thank you 🙂
Added to my Denmark shortlist!
Let’s make Nokia great again 😀
Hi RIP,
Excellent post, initiative and fair play for thinking big. As Peter Thiel says, you were looking up to the Gods and not around you. And thanks for the mention:- )
I was naturally going to draft a ‘Living in Budapest’ post sometime down the line. But why not expand it into something bigger, something that would adhere to the EERG guidelines (that has it’s own brainstorming committee:- )
If you wish for me to be a contributor re Hungary, I could then collaborate with some other Hungarians here for local knowledge. I regularly meet local folk at my Meetup.
Some good key topics there. Maybe as sub-topics, we could have:
1. The air quality of major cities…i.e. I know the air quality is much better in Buda, than Pest. Maybe we measure the actual air quality/ get from metrology office and have a benchmark…Switzerland!
2. Is it family friendly? i.e. maybe some neighborhoods or districts are better than others
3. Is there a good Dating Scene? i.e. best ways to get around this
4. Friendliness factor i.e. how willing are they to help out with directions, are they polite with tourists etc
5. Language Difficulty factor and benchmark…and how much English is used in this country/ city
6. Restaurant/ street food quality and diversity
7. How easy is it to meet folk…i.e is there good expat groups in place
8. ‘Tourist tax’…what parts of City to avoid, how to get around
The list goes on…I’m happy to help:- )
Hi Stefano (Italian name?)
you couldn’t have made me happier with your comment!
I’m gathering together all the comments, ideas, offers, that I’ve received here, on FB, on Twitter, on reddit, via mail etc before officially launching a brainstorming team (but isn’t the waiting for a brainstorming committee the brainstorming committee itself??)… And you just added a good pile of new amazing ideas on what goes into a country review!
Awesome!!
I’ll get back to you, thank you for wanting to join forces 😀
Not that it matters but in Hungarian HERE means literally… testicles. Just saying…
Oh, also you can add me to the shortlist of Hungary, not an expert as not living in the country, but as a Hungarian, I could help with the research on native language.
RIP this project starts to get big, in the end, you will need a company backing it. If this will happen that also needs a name, my suggestion would be FIRE-works 🙂
Fireworks is a candidate name for so many of my projects 😀
Hey MrRIP, count me in.
I’m also an Italian expat living in Switzerland but I think that I can contribute as well.
Awesome! Thanks!
Why not make it a retirement guide as opposed to an early retirement guide? You are excluding a lot of people who are flexible in terms of retirement place by focusing on people aiming for early retirement. I’m sure the information you’re compiling will be useful for both types of readers.
Of course it will be a guide that covers regular retirement too 🙂
Another site to be inspired by: https://www.theearthawaits.com/
Thanks, added to the list of external resources to parse 🙂
Hi, do you already have volunteers for France? I lived there for 5 years until 2010… So my experience dates but I could do research in french and ask the (few!) French FIRE bloggers to volunteer or add on to my content.
Awesome project!
Cheers, Noemi
What a bliss!
France was one of the main uncovered country 🙂
Of course you’re in!
Expect an update in a week more or less 🙂
Hi RIP,
Do you have a volunteer for the UK? I cannot see anyone has volunteered yet. I also have experience living in Singapore – this knowledge is much more limited however.
Awesome, thanks for applying for UK!
I have someone from UK (more on this in a future UPDATE post on EERG), but the more the better.
Adding you to my shortlist, stay tuned for updates 😉
A comment from our friend Mr.RTF (road-to-fire.com) that got blocked by the spam filter:
That’s a wonderful idea! I would be keen to contribute and help you materialize this project.
Areas in which I could contribute are:
Let me know if you need some support on this aspects 🙂
Kind regards,
Mr RTF
Hi Mr. RIP, love the idea of having this type of resource available for current and future Mustachians! If I can help with insights from Portugal, I’ll be glad to (born and lived there for 37 years, living in Switzerland since 2012).
Wish you good luck with this project!
Thank you Mobius, I added you to my shortlist.
Stay tuned for an update on this in December
Mr. W. pointed this out to me and it’s a really interesting and ambitious project! Feel free to incorporate any info from my posts: [https://]financeyourfire[dot]com/category/fi-abroad/
I started investigating places myself. Not really in-depth (not going through all the numbers, tax, etc.). My main objective is to get an impression and work on some sort of ‘shortlist’ with candidate cities/countries. I will then pick a few favorites and do a more in-depth analysis (everything that I should know before actually making the move). I can definitely see myself emigrating to realize my FIRE dream!
Hi Marc, I’ve also seen your recent posts about geo arbitraging and added a TODO on my EERG doc “contact this guy” 🙂
At the moment I don’t have enough energies to jump on this project with the commitment it demands, so it’s stale. I’ll be back on it soon-ish
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