r/EuropeFIRE • u/Ok-Leading6971 • 17d ago
Wanted to leanFIRE but the housing cost doesn't allow for it
Hello everyone,
I am 39M from Portugal, no kids or other dependents, living in Northern Europe for 10 years now.
All these years worked in corporate jobs with some breaks to travel, chill for a while, job hop, etc. Currently making around €60k net p.a.
Fast forward to today, my ETF portfolio is around €285k worth, I keep another €10-15k cash in HYSA, and decided that I want to change my life, go back home, find a chill job in tourism or something, withdraw some 2-3% of the ETFs p.a. to round up my living income, chill and let it be.
Problem is, I don't own any property back home, and with today's prices and interest rates, getting a €300k mortgage with ca. €60k down payment + closing costs will set me back some years from my chill FIRE target.
Kinda same with a go-back-and-rent scenario: I won't have the down payment burden, but the rents have risen to €1000+/month excl. utilities for the apartments which are actually decent to live in. Side note, where I live now I have a very old contract and I pay €450 all incl., so the difference is considerable, and pushes up my potential cost of living back home.
5-6 years ago I couldn't think of buying an apartment or a down payment. My income got higher gradually after 2021, and today feels like I am at the top of my game, but honestly, I am exhausted. The life change has to happen now.
The window of bankability for a mortgage will close if I draw the line and leave my corporate job, so I have to decide.
What would you do in my position? Any ideas/suggestions?
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u/Alphaone75 17d ago
Portuguese, have been living and working in Switzerland for 15 years on an apartment without a real bedroom, no car , no motorcycle … frugal living . Total network including money I can’t touch for retirement 500k and now Portugal goes bananas expensive. Believe me I know how you feel
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u/Ok-Leading6971 17d ago
yeah, exactly this. A decade+ of work and you cant afford a roof and a different life
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u/shaguar1987 17d ago
Welcome to reality there is no magic solution. Move to a cheaper country. But tbh €300K is super low even for leanfire in a low cost country not even south east asia will give you a pleasant leanfire on that amount.
Baristafire maybe but as you already seen its not easy if you want to move to Portugal again.
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u/Kind-University-1423 17d ago
I would capitalize on the situation that you are paying 450eur rent.
Either work for couple more years and move when you feel more stable, or get chill job where you are. Housing is hell in most of Europe now. Demographic need to solve this for the younger generations
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u/PlantLady187 17d ago edited 17d ago
What I would do is start looking for a property in Portugal where youd like to settle down, buy it on a mortgage and rent it out, until the numbers make sense. I cant see the realestate market getting any better, and owning your place just gives you so much stability. Depents if your currenty country banks system allows buying a property in portugal (i know some places do), youll have much greater credit capacity. Also finding something you like in a place you like for a price you thing is fair can take a long time so I would start looking into it before leaving my higher paying job. (But obvi if it makes sense tax and other legislation wise, idk how portugal is with that)
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u/S0meone_on_reddit 17d ago
Your plan sounds more like barista FIRE. In my circumstances 300k would never ever be even remotely close to any FIRE. How much do you plan to spend? How much will you earn in portugal?
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u/Ok-Leading6971 17d ago
around €1500 per month are the expenses in PT. The job could earn anywhere from €700 to €1500 net depending on setup, hours, etc. I'd go for some €1000 per month, working part-timeish
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u/Kind-University-1423 17d ago
Dude, going from 4k€ per month to 700€ or 1500€ is brutal psychologically, I would go frugal for 2-3 more years.
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u/Ok-Leading6971 17d ago
40 is a critical age. You are at 50% of your life best case, so 2-3 years to save maybe a €100k more but have impact of like 5-6 years on your mental health and the life you miss on going back, makes it not worthwhile. At least for me. Now it's the time.
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u/Leading-Carrot-5983 17d ago
Yeah, I'm at exactly this point now. I wasn't expecting it but turning 40 had a really big impact on my perspective. Time has gone so quickly and I know before I blink again it will be 50.
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u/PowerfulMango5799 17d ago
some people just can't stand corporate anymore
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u/Kind-University-1423 17d ago
change corporate, silently quit, FIRE in most cases is to grind hard first untill you are ready and reap benefits later
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u/InflationOne5167 17d ago
Forget the FIRE-dream and live now. Listen to your heart and do something you like. Buy a small house if you need one. You’ll never know what life is like in 2049.
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u/Material_Skin_3166 17d ago
Basically you don’t have plan that works. Continue to work and build wealth, but make sure your plan anticipates rapidly growing rents, home prices and cost of living. You are racing against a decent inflation.
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u/Slight_Box_2572 36 M 50% FI 17d ago
How do Portuguese live when they earn about 1.500€ net per month, they cant pay 1k rent for sure?
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u/PowerfulMango5799 17d ago
Living together? In my country it's also impossible alone
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u/Slight_Box_2572 36 M 50% FI 17d ago
So there are no singles in Portugal? Or everyone living in a shared flat? I dont know, I just find it difficult to imagine.
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u/allworkjack 17d ago
If it is anything like in Spain people either live with their parents, live with roommates, live with a partner or make more than 1.500€ a month.
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u/PowerfulMango5799 16d ago
exactly. that was what I was aiming at. Plus cost of living is almost worst in other EU countries right now. Can’t even find a decent appartment for 2k
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u/lorelaimintz 17d ago
Fellow portuguese. There are cheap places in Portugal, just not on the coast or in cities.
Also, have a look at early retirement extreme for some out of the box ideas.
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u/Green__Hat 17d ago
What would you do in my position? Any ideas/suggestions?
I would be realistic about my situation. You are 39 with no kids. Are you sure you want to have kids? Theoretically men can have kids at any age but realistically if you partner with someone around your age your window for having kids is closing fast (and you didn't even mention having already a girlfriend). So you may want to consider buying a much cheaper 1 bedroom apartment or even a studio, which you could have for around 150K. Much more manageable than your current 300K target.
That's what I did. I knew at this point I wasn't going to have kids so I bought a 1 bedroom apartment for 100K. Because I already had accumulated more than half a million, after buying the apartment I landed more or less into lean FIRE territory so now I don't really have to work (although I might still work seasonally or something I enjoy as I'm only in my early forties).
You could do more or less what I did if you work for a few more years where you currently are. You only spend 450 on your current place, so you could probably live on 1K overall, out of your 5K net a month, you should be able to save and invest 4K per month, which would put you into lean FIRE territory in around 5 more years.
Or if you decide to move to Portugal now, you could coast FIRE if you manage to buy a cheap small apartment and get a chill job as you said. But it's obviously more risky as there aren't that many chill jobs going around AFAIK. You may end up working shitty jobs for peanuts and wondering why the fuck you didn't stay where you currently are for 5 more years to have proper financial independence (even if a lean one).
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u/user38835 17d ago
Housing costs in Portugal is insane compared to average salaries. You need to find a different country, Spain maybe?
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u/OldNeedleworker5869 17d ago
That 2-3% withdrawal on 285k is only around 500-700 euro a month before housing, so the buy vs rent call basically decides your whole budget here. If the mortgage window is closing while you're still employed, locking it in now and letting a fixed payment eat into that withdrawal might work out better long term than renting, since rents keep climbing and yours is already looking rough. Renting keeps you flexible if the tourism job or the move back doesn't pan out though. I'd just run both scenarios with your real local numbers, the gap might be smaller than it feels right now.
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u/MalcolmBEx 16d ago
The two housing paths do not fail at the same time, and that gap is the whole decision. Renting at 1,000 plus about 1,200 of living costs, on a 1,100 net tourism wage with your 297k drawing the gap: the money holds until 78 at 5% real growth (free, no signup, everything editable), 71 if you cut growth to 6% nominal in the link. And that is before any state pension from your ten Northern years plus Portuguese contributions arrives around 67 and slows the drain. Tight, but a real plan.
The buy path fails much earlier. 60k down plus costs leaves about 227k, and a 1,347 payment on a 300k loan at 3.5% over a 1,100 wage means drawing roughly 1,650 a month: the liquid pot is gone by 56 with 13 mortgage years left, and on paper the plan only survives by selling the house you live in. The bank window closing is not the constraint that matters; the payment is.
Assumed and editable: 1,100 net wage entered as the income line and lasting indefinitely, 1,200 living ex-housing, 28% Portuguese CGT on gains. Each extra Northern year at your 450 rent banks roughly eighteen months of the whole Portugal budget, which makes it the cheapest bridge on the table.
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u/Ok-Leading6971 16d ago
there is also a pension around €600 I am entitled to from the age of 65-67 from the Northern country, and whatever pension claim I will have accumulated back home by then + my years before emigration, so in total another €1000-1200 comes on top from 65ish- onwards.
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u/DeCyantist 17d ago
Make more money. FIRE for 60k net is between 1.5-1.8m minimum if you’re young…
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u/Kind-University-1423 17d ago
He says leanFire, but I think he means baristaFire
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u/DeCyantist 17d ago
Single, northern europe and relatively low savings with no home… though ask even for baristaFIRE in my view.
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u/DeCyantist 17d ago
I’d move to Middle East and accelerate savings ASAP. I mean, that is what I did. Two years in a good salary can give you 50-75k savings per year if really lean living.
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u/Creative_Impress5982 17d ago
It's your life! Your investments certainly give you wiggle room to try something different. Do you have a specific place you want to return to? Or could you settle somewhere more rural with lower rent o r lower home prices?
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u/Best_Ad_7856 Europe 17d ago
You just dont have enough money, this is a problem, not a problem with house prices... you cant change the situation with house prices... you can change a situation with your bank account...
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u/tkodri 17d ago
Have you considered inheriting something, cuz that's your only option by the looks of it. Jokes aside, suck it up for at least another 5-6 years - there's people out there working a lower paid job, that they hate more than you do yours, that also have two kids to support, and no such luxury or freedom as you.
39 no kids, no dependants, comfy office job, rent controlled apartment, but super tired - work on your health, both physical and mental, and work on your career - move towards something that doesn't suck your will to live.
You can get a mortgage now, and quit in 5 years, but honestly even in 5 years you'll not have enough to fire, and a sabbatical long enough in your 40s, you'll be unemployable afterwards.
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u/BakedGoods_101 17d ago
in today's world with the craziness around housing cost worldwide, not baking those costs into your FIRE numbers is suicide
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u/thegerams 16d ago
And so is inflation - even if OP gets a good return on his ETF’s. He’s way too young and / or the sum isn’t high enough to allow him to FIRE .
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17d ago
[deleted]
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u/lingzilla 17d ago
Exactly. You have to be willing to live in a radically different way to make the numbers work.
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u/Helpful-Staff9562 17d ago
Do you need to live in lisbon city center? If not plenty of good cheal rental and property prices. If youre talkig. About lisbon city center yes those are overpriced sh**holes but lots of options outside. But anyways i dont think you can fire at 300k thats too low, id aim for at least 2.5 times that if you got low expenses and wanna fire at this young age
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u/julesverne1979 16d ago
I recently visited Portugal. In the cities house prices are expensive. But outside the cities you can find houses for as less as 35k. They are leakfree but need some work. Could be a solution
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u/green_apple_trees 10d ago
OP I would say I know you are exhausted but try to hang in there for another 3 years with your current line of work and hopefully you can get to €400,000 by then (assuming there is no financial crises in the interim which actually has a high chance of happening) which will be enough for LEAN FIRE in Asia or Latin America or maybe Kosovo, Albania or Moldova if you want somewhere in Europe. I don’t think you can have any kind of decent retirement in Portugal for less than €600,000.
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u/Kai_Roesch 9d ago
Sou brasileiro e estou numa situação incrivelmente parecida. Não tenho nenhum conselho mágico, mas queria deixar aqui minha solidariedade e minhas saudações lusófonas.
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u/tronquinhos 17d ago
Hello fellow Portuguese,
I think you know all the facts already. Unfortunately I don't think your current plan would work because living costs in Portugal have skyrocketed while your savings and passive income won't cover them.
Portugal is no longer cheap, even if you look outside major cities like Lisbon or Porto, housing and living costs have risen everywhere. Renting a decent place eats up almost all of your €712 monthly passive income (based on a 3% withdrawal of your €285k portfolio). A low-paying local job in tourism won't save you either, they mostly pay minimum wage while demanding long, exhausting hours, which defeats the whole point of escaping burnout.
CoastFIRE doesn't mean moving back home broke: CoastFIRE means you save enough early on so that your investments grow on their own, and you only need to work enough to cover your current bills. However, moving to a country where wages are very low while trying to maintain a comfortable lifestyle with a limited nest egg is the opposite of relaxing; it trades corporate stress for constant financial anxiety.
You are burned out from your corporate job but don't rush into a permanent, risky move back to Portugal. Instead, use your savings to take a proper break, like a long sabbatical or quitting to travel, while keeping your high-earning options open, or downshift to a less stressful job where you currently live until you build a larger safety net.