All posts in the Net Worth category: tips, guides and updates on personal finance and net worth.
€35,000 of own capital on a €350,000 mortgage delivers an 8.15% effective return, higher than the mortgage rate itself. That comes from a double effect most calculators don't show.
Read the postEvery calculator online shows you the gross amount of your statutory severance pay. None of them answer the question that actually matters: how many years does that cover if you want to stop working early?
Read the postYour savings are protected up to €100,000, but that limit applies per banking licence, not per brand name. ASN, RegioBank and SNS share one. Not knowing that can leave you unknowingly over the limit.
Read the postA savings mortgage shows €250,000 of debt on your statement. With €95,000 in the linked policy, your real net debt is €155,000. Almost nobody ever sees those two figures side by side.
Read the postAt €200,000 of equity and a fifty-fifty split, the buyout amount is €100,000. But the new mortgage that follows is usually the real obstacle, not the buyout sum itself.
Read the postReducing your municipal valuation by €30,000 saves you sixty to a hundred euros a year. But if your lender uses that valuation for your risk band, the same reduction can cost you five hundred.
Read the postAs a self-employed person you miss the second pension pillar entirely. At €40,000 of spending and stopping at sixty, that's €227,975 of extra wealth. At lower spending the gap is proportionally larger still.
Read the postRepaying gives a guaranteed return equal to your mortgage rate. But there's a way of repaying that yields up to eighteen percent, and almost nobody knows it.
Read the postReleasing €100,000 of equity costs roughly €507 a month at 4.5%. Here are the amounts per loan size, the three routes, and the point where it stops adding up.
Read the postUnder the new pension law, survivor's pension before your retirement date became insurance rather than a savings pot. Leave employment and it lapses after three months.
Read the postThe reasons for taking your pension to a new employer have largely disappeared under the new system. One new reason has appeared, and it comes with a date.
Read the postTwenty percent less work for ten percent less salary, with full pension accrual. Worked through, you buy a free day at fifty percent off. Here's where the catches sit.
Read the postSince 1 January 2026 the early-exit scheme is structural and restricted to heavy work. The payment is €2,357 gross a month, roughly €1,558 net. What that covers and what it doesn't.
Read the postWith €36,900 in savings you're in the wealthier half of the Netherlands. But the average is the wrong measure, because savings lose value and the question is how much you need.
Read the postMost advice gives you a list. This gives you an order, with each step calculated in years taken off your timeline. The biggest surprise sits at number two.
Read the postThe top ten percent starts at €680,000. The median sits at €135,500. But neither figure tells you whether you have enough, because being rich is a comparison and having enough is a calculation.
Read the postAt €3,000 a month of spending and stopping at sixty you need roughly €330,000. Find your own combination of spending and age in the table.
Read the postYour savings rate determines your timeline more than your return does. The well-known table from the FIRE movement comes from America and overstates the Dutch timeline by up to twenty-two years.
Read the postYour loan to value is your outstanding mortgage divided by your property value. Drop below a threshold and you can request a lower rate. Plenty of people cross one without noticing.
Read the postPassive income is rarely passive. A level-headed look at the forms it takes, what they actually produce, and how to measure whether it is working.
Read the postDEGIRO gives you three different statements and most people take the wrong one. What each contains, and why the transaction list skews your return.
Read the postAt €680,000 you join the wealthiest ten per cent of households. At a million, the top 5.5 per cent. What those thresholds mean and why they mislead.
Read the postFinancial independence isn't a moment but a ladder. The first rung costs twenty thousand, the last six hundred thousand. And the most important one sits between them, far lower than people expect.
Read the postVolatility measures how much your portfolio moves around its own average. It is the raw material for almost every other risk measure. Here is how it is calculated and how to read it.
Read the postHalf a million supports more in the Netherlands than the standard calculation suggests, because state and occupational pensions take over part of it. Stopping at sixty, that's nearly €43,000 a year.
Read the postThe Sharpe ratio measures how much return a portfolio produced per unit of volatility. How it is calculated, how to read it, and why two Sharpe ratios are rarely comparable.
Read the postLiving off your returns means never touching your capital. That's stricter than FIRE and it costs more. But state and occupational pensions bring the figure below what the standard calculation suggests.
Read the postA portfolio is the whole of your investments. The names do not drive the result, the weighting does. How to read weight, spread and concentration.
Read the postDiversification means spreading your money so one setback does not decide your result. Twenty names is not spread if they all move the same way.
Read the postDividend yield is the income a position pays relative to what it is worth today. Because price sits in the denominator, the percentage moves whenever the price does.
Read the postAsset allocation is how your wealth is divided across classes: equities, bonds, property, crypto and cash. A different question from which positions you hold.
Read the postThe Netherlands has 452 thousand millionaire households, one in eighteen. But a million is a round number without meaning, and for most Dutch households the target that matters sits lower.
Read the postThe average Dutch household holds €333,500 in wealth. Half hold less than €135,500. That gap of nearly two hundred thousand explains why these figures confuse more often than they help.
Read the postThere's no earnings limit on your occupational pension. But earning before your state pension date is worth less net than after, and that changes the calculation.
Read the postProfit divided by contributions gives the wrong answer the moment you add money mid-year. Here is how to work out what your investments actually returned.
Read the postStopping at sixty requires roughly €476,000 of your own wealth. Your pension falls 39%, no scheme helps you, and it's above all a decision about timing.
Read the postSixty-five still feels like the retirement age, but it now means retiring two years early. What that costs, and why it barely matters whether you start your pension then.
Read the postThe best-known criticism of drawing your pension early is that your payment falls permanently. That's true, and it isn't the biggest drawback. The real costs sit elsewhere.
Read the postStarting your occupational pension early permanently lowers your payment. But there's a variant that boosts precisely the years before your state pension begins, and it's rarely explained.
Read the postState pension age is 67 and rises to 67 years and 3 months in 2028. For anyone born on or after 1 October 1964 the date isn't fixed yet, and that affects every calculation about retiring early.
Read the postYour state pension depends on two things: whether you live alone or with a partner, and how many years you were insured in the Netherlands. With current amounts and what a gap in your accrual means for your stop date.
Read the postNot what you need at a chosen date, but the reverse question: given your current wealth and what you set aside, when can you stop? In five steps.
Read the postStopping at 57 requires roughly €544,000 at €40,000 of annual spending. No scheme reaches that far, so it comes entirely from your own wealth. Which makes it mainly a question of when you begin.
Read the postStopping three years early costs roughly €131,000 at €40,000 of annual spending. That figure has two components, and the Dutch early-exit scheme covers about half of it.
Read the postThere are two ways to stop working early: through your employer and pension scheme, or through your own wealth. The first route narrowed sharply in 2026. The second is open to everyone.
Read the postThe two extremes of the FIRE spectrum differ in only one input: what you spend. But in the Netherlands that difference plays out very differently from the United States.
Read the postState pension, occupational pension and private annuities each do something different in a FIRE calculation. And none of the three pays for the years in which you actually want to stop early.
Read the postYour wealth covers part of your spending and you earn the rest doing work you choose. The name comes from the American healthcare system: in the Netherlands it works differently, and more favourably.
Read the postCoast FIRE is the milestone where your accumulated wealth grows into enough for retirement on its own. In the Netherlands that point arrives startlingly early, and means less than it appears.
Read the postThe best-known rule of thumb in the FIRE movement comes from American research in the nineties, covers thirty years, and means something different from what almost everyone assumes.
Read the postFour inputs, four steps, one number and one date. Including the Excel formulas and the three assumptions your calculation reacts to most sharply.
Read the postFIRE says you need twenty-five times your annual spending. That rule of thumb comes from a country without a state pension and without mandatory occupational pensions. In the Netherlands your number is considerably lower.
Read the postHome equity is your property value minus your outstanding mortgage. Simple enough. In practice people trip over municipal valuations, multiple loan parts, and the question of how much of it they actually built themselves.
Read the postYour net worth chart doesn't start from zero when you sign up. Gylder reconstructs your financial history using transaction data and daily snapshots. Here's how.
Read the postGylder groups your wealth into clear categories — cash, investments, crypto, and debts. Here's how the portfolio view works and what it tells you.
Read the postYour net worth is the single best measure of financial health. Learn what it means, how to calculate it, and why tracking it regularly changes your financial behaviour.
Read the post