Full honest roast please, I feel like im wasting money honestly.

In 2026 I got a job in IT 2h away from the family home, after 8 months I decided to move to the same city so that I could get more sleep and my first taste of "living as an adult".

I decided to find a WG so I'd make some friends and invest the money I don't pay for the rest of the rest. This diagram is a rough mix/representation of my first month here + what I expect to use on "normal" months for the next coming times.

I'd like to know what you guys think of it, if there are any improvements or if I missed anything.

A few notes:

• I invest all I have left in VT. This month everything went instead to my VIAC Global 100 portfolio, which I just set up for the first. In the future though, distribution should be more similar to the diagram.
• There's no "transports" category because I already paid for a GA for this year and now mostly travel by bike, so I won't buy a GA next year and hence don't need to put money aside for that.
• Vacations is: the only (non-family, meaning I pay) vacations I did this year, x3 (the amount I expect to start doing now that I live by myself) /12.
• Housing should normally be way lower than 50CHF, but I had to buy some tools since I just moved in. Some rare times I'll need to buy some furniture, in which case it'll be way higher than 50CHF.. all in all, 50CHF felt like a good average between normal/anormal months.
• I just noticed "Entertainment" appears twice, "Other" here accounts for administrative papers I had to pay to get to move cantons. Other is hence more for "unexpected" expenses.

Hallo zusammen, Ich teile hier mein aktuelles Budget-Setup – bin gespannt, was ihr dazu sagt.

Ich bin 18 Jahre alt, wohne zu Hause bei meinen Eltern. Arbeite derzeit 80%.

Kurzer Kontext zu ein paar Posten, die aus der Grafik vielleicht nicht sofort ersichtlich sind:

Bitcoin (1.000/Monat, ca. 25% des Gehalts) wird bewusst getrennt von meinem Aktienportfolio (VWCE-Kern + Satelliten) erfasst. Ich möchte, dass beide unabhängig voneinander performen, anstatt sie in einem „Investment“-Topf zu vermischen.

3. Säule ist monatlich voll ausgereizt, anstatt als Einmalzahlung am Jahresende.

Fixkosten sind für Schweizer Verhältnisse eher niedrig, hauptsächlich weil die Miete hier noch nicht enthalten ist – wohne ja noch zu Hause.

Ich arbeite als Privatkundenberater bei einer Bank, daher predige ich auch beruflich Disziplin beim Budgetieren/Sparen – gut, dass ich das auch wirklich lebe.

Was meint ihr dazu? (Grafik erstellt mit finanzfluss.de/rechner/flussdiagramm)

Edit: Everything in CHF

A couple of 2 in their mid-30s without children.

I keep struggling with a moral dilemma regarding Swiss real estate.

Even with high transaction fees and Grundstückgewinnsteuer, housing remains out of reach for most families. Personally, it feels ethically wrong to treat a basic human necessity as a yield machine and profit off people who just want a stable place to live.

The paradox, of course, is that our own Pensionskassen rely heavily on residential property yields to fund our retirements.

Should the state restrict buy-to-let investments further, or is this just fair game? Do ethics play any role in your asset allocation, or is it strictly numbers for you?

Hey everyone,

I’ve been brainstorming a real estate idea in Switzerland and wanted to get a reality check from people who know the market or have done this themselves.

Here is the basic scenario I have in mind:

Property price: CHF 600,000

Down payment: CHF 150,000 (25% equity)

Mortgage: CHF 450,000

My initial thought is that I put down the 150k, secure a mortgage for the rest, and then use the monthly rental income to pay off the mortgage. In theory, the apartment basically pays for itself over time while building equity.

However, this sounds almost too easy and too good to be true.

I’m wondering what I am missing. For those of you with experience in Swiss real estate, what are the hidden traps, risks, or overlooked costs in this strategy?

How do Swiss taxes (like income tax on rent, wealth tax, and imputed rental value / Eigenmietwert if applicable to investment properties) affect the math?

What about mandatory amortization, maintenance funds (Erneuerungsfonds), and management fees if you rent it out?

What happens if interest rates rise or the property sits empty for a few months?

Do you think this is a viable investment strategy in Switzerland, or is it far more complicated (and less profitable) than it looks on paper?

Would love to hear your thoughts, experiences, or warnings!

Hi All, following up on my recent post about wanting to go self-employed, and wanted to find out from others who have done so (in any sphere) how difficult it is to accomplish? You need at least 3 clients, a website, some business cards...is that it? What else will the authorities ask for? How long does the process take? Is there a minimum you need to earn or hours worked? Then you can pull out your 2me pilier, correct?

My goal is to pull out my 2nd pillier to buy a couple extra rental properties (I already have a couple that work well) to provide some basic income, and then just work part-time to top it up.

Investment advisory would be a natural self employment given my career, though I am worried that the compliance & regulatory costs might be too high for a small side gig of a few hours here and there.

Another option could be property management given I do it for myself and there are a lot of holiday properties in my home town, which might be less onerous in terms of regulation. I'm even wondering about being a hiking guide, as it is what I do in my spare time anyway! Just looking for a bit of extra income on top of the rentals. Any advice welcome thanks

Admittedly, I'm just saving the investment money currently because I haven't had time to figure out investing and such.

Hi all,

My wife and I are currently using the Certo! Mastercard World credit card. We are now wondering if it makes sense to switch to one of the different Gold or Platinum card offers given that we are anyways paying for travel insurance and are renting cars abroad (+ paying for the full coverage insurance).

Does it make sense to consolidate and get a Platinum card instead? If so, which one?

Some potentially relevant information:

• Groceries mainly at Migros but also here and there at Coop, Aldi and Lidl (in that order).
• Online purchases within Switzerland as well as abroad (e.g., Amazon Kindle eBooks, etc.)
• Currently have travel insurance from Allianz (~300.- p.a.)
• Flying a couple of times every year
• Renting cars abroad 1+ times per year (+ paying for the full coverage insurance)
• Using credit card also abroad while traveling if not paying in cash

I am 24M working in AI as a first job and this is how I distribute my monthly net salary. I wonder if there are any potential optimizations to make.

All my investments at the moment go to a world ETF.

By Activities I consider going out, travel, occasional train/plane tickets, basically anything related to my social life. Some months I might spend 200, another 1500+ if I travel. Overall it comes down to around 600 a month.

Whatever I do not spend in the month goes in the cash fund which I mainly use for savings in order to buy short term things <5 years - holidays, phone, car, furniture, whatever. Once I buy all the things that I want, I’ll most likely increase the budget in investing and keep cash for emergencies and spontaneous purchases, holidays, etc. I assume the allocation on this cash fund will depend also on age, responsibilities, urgencies, etc.

Soon enough I will need to pay the normal insurance rate and will probably cut down a little from other places to compensate for this part.

I intend to start investing in 3a once I get C permit in Switzerland (also simplifies the process). As non-EU and given my current age I do not feel the urgency to do this part now. Should I instead focus on optimizing this too at this stage?

I try to keep my allocations simple and straightforward even if it might not be 100% accurate all the time. I found it better to follow my mental model and not allocate every franc to every little category.

If all is well and I get salary increases in the future, I intend to invest most of it.

Any comment is appreciated :)

I’m considering to rebalance my portfolio in finpension 3a:

• 40% UBS (CH) Index Fund 3 – Equities World ex CH NSL I-X-acc ISIN CH0429081620
• 40% UBS (CH) Index Fund 3 – Equities World ex CH Value Weighted I-B-acc ISIN CH0214975366
• 12% UBS (CH) Institutional Fund – Equities Emerging Markets Global Passive II I-X-acc ISIN CH0252809717
• 7% UBS (CH) Institutional Fund 2 – Equities World ex CH Small Index NSL I-X-acc ISIN CH0209675195

The two World ex Switzerland funds overlap substantially at the security level, but they apply different weighting methodologies. The standard fund is market-cap weighted and therefore has greater exposure to US mega-cap technology. The Value Weighted fund reweights the same broad developed-market universe using fundamentals such as earnings, sales, book value and cash earnings. It therefore reduces mega-cap concentration and increases exposure to sectors such as financials, industrials and energy.

I compared the historical returns of the UBS funds and their underlying MSCI indices over the available periods. Value Weighted performed well over the examined three-year, five-year and extended USD index periods. However, I do not want to treat recent factor performance as a forecast, which is why I am considering a 40/40 allocation rather than making Value the dominant holding.

I generally like the simplicity and market-neutral logic of VT. If an equivalent low-cost global fund were straightforward to implement within this 3a structure, VT would be a natural reference portfolio for me. This allocation is effectively an attempt to retain broad global equity exposure while adding an explicit value tilt and developed-market small caps.

All equity positions are unhedged, and automatic rebalancing would maintain the target weights.

Does a 40% Value allocation represent a reasonable long-term factor tilt, or is it too aggressive and unnecessarily complicated compared with holding mostly the standard World fund?

Has anyone expirience with the ETF mentioned in the caption? ISIN LU3254343414

Looks like an interesting one for me for long term investments as it has a global approach with Switzerland overweight, RE and Gold included, USA below 50%. But the TER at 0.49% is very high.

​

It looks like a nice way to get a new apartment, compliant with the latest sustainable requirements and slightly customized. I also found that the price is a bit more convenient. I would like to know from your experience.

Me and my partner had a discussion.

The situation:
She has gained a 5-digit amount of money through inheritance. A larger amount will be used at the end of the year. She is not in the investment game and quite unsure as she just started.

Now comes the question: would it make sense to put the money to use in a 4 month period and then remove it?

The cancellation can be done within 3 - 4 days with the product that i currently have my investments in. Thus i suggested her to let it sit there, use the amount and time in the mean time until she needs it.

Some money should be kept on the side for just in case, but the question is, would it be worth in the first place?
I would say yes, therefore I would be interesed to hear other opinions to it as well.

Edit: Answer = Don't

Need a sanity check here.

Found this one in Pfäffikon (SZ): https://www.homegate.ch/buy/4003415014

The price itself, around 20k/m2, is somewhat usual for Schwyz. That's not even what bothers me.

It's the location. Pull up the satellite view. The place is basically a traffic island, boxed in by the Churerstrasse, a full highway junction, and the railway line right behind it. Gas station on one side, autobahn feeding past the front.

So who actually buys this? At that price I'd expect something livable, not a plot wrapped in asphalt and rail tracks on every side.

Genuine question: is this just the market now, or is it as absurd as it looks?

Hi everyone
My girlfriend and I are 30 and 28 and currently live in Zurich. We pay around CHF 1,400 per month in rent, so our current situation is very affordable.

I grew up in a town about 15 minutes from Zurich by train. We now have the opportunity to buy a detached house there for CHF 1.7 million. It’s in a really nice neighbourhood and exactly where we could imagine living long term.

The house is around 50 years old. It has been well maintained and we could move in without doing any major renovations immediately. However, we know that the heating system will need to be replaced in the coming years, and the pipes will probably need to be done at some point as well.

The bank has valued the house at the full CHF 1.7 million and is willing to finance the purchase. We can provide the required CHF 340,000 in equity. The seller knows that she could probably get more for it on the open market, but she would prefer to sell it to someone she knows.

Giving up such a cheap apartment and taking on a large mortgage is huge for us. At the same time, a house in this location will not come up again. It‘s only through our connection to her a possibility.
Has anyone here bought an older house in a similar situation and is willing to share their experience?

I have a large lump sum that I want to invest in either VT or VALL.

Until now, I’ve always traded through Swissquote. Why? I decided to use a Swiss broker because I invest a significant amount of money and feel more secure knowing that the bank is based in Switzerland. They also provide the tax statement for my tax return, which is convenient.

However, I now want to make a large lump-sum investment in VT in USD. Swissquote has very high currency-conversion fees, around 1%, which would cost me a lot of money.

I was considering either converting the money through Revolut, although that still seems a bit complicated, or moving to IBKR for good.

I’ve also thought about investing in the new VALL due to concerns about the future of the US, political tensions, etc.

What would you suggest?

1. Move to IBKR
2. Buy through Swissquote
3. Convert the money through Revolut or a similar service

I’m 32 and looking to start investing around CHF 100 in stocks every month. I would like to hear how other people in Switzerland would approach it.

I’m a complete beginner when it comes to stocks and investing. I’d like to start somewhere, build the habit and potentially increase the amount in the future.

If you were starting today with CHF 100 per month, what would you invest in and why?

I’m based in Switzerland, so recommendations for platforms or strategies that work well here would also be appreciated.

Thank you!

Hey!

I'm looking for apartments that would be a good long-term fit for a family. So, it needs to have at least 4.5 to 5 rooms. Renting an apartment like that is quite expensive. We're talking about 2.5-3k per month at least.

Now, if you were to buy an apartment of that size, you could get one for 800k-900k in the areas I'm looking at (but they aren't as nice as newly built apartments), if you're lucky. Setting aside the fact that this is super expensive for an apartment (!), I noticed that the monthly bill for the mortgage could be significantly lower with our parameters (the amount of equity we would invest, the current interest rate, etc.). It could be half of what renting costs per month.

So, my thoughts are if it's not better to buy an apartment to lower the monthly bill, since the mortgage would be (much) lower than the rent?

The downsides seem obvious though:

• All of our money would be tied up in an apartment.
• We would probably need to pay a "condo fee" (Hausgeld) each month on top of the mortgage, but I don't know how high that usually is though.
• Our capital wouldn't partake in the capital market anymore, so we would lose quite some gains.
• VT and chill is much easier and causes less hassle / headaches.
• We are then suddenly in a situation where we are extremely dependent on our jobs. If the job market goes bad and we get fired, we are at great risk. This is a much more vulnerable position than being a renter, who is flexible and mobile. Having such a huge debt is a different kind of pressure.

As a family on B permits, these risks are amplified because our stay is not permanently guaranteed. We are always dependent on the goodwill of current politics and discourse.

Also, my intuition is that prices are extremely high in Switzerland. This is partly because interest rates are so low compared to other countries, which allows you to take on much bigger loans. If interest rates ever increase significantly, prices would need to decrease to meet market demand. Similar things have happened in Germany, for example, where prices were very high during times of low interest rates. Suddenly, random 3 room apartments could go for half a mil. Now, they have dropped again since similar loans from before are too expensive. I'm afraid such an event could decrease the value of an apartment, which would be risky if you invested a million dollars... for an apartment.

Your thoughts?

Hi everyone,
I’m helping my mum choose a vested benefits account (Freizügigkeitskonto). She is 60 years old, lives in Neuchâtel, and plans to retire in around 2 years.
She has around CHF 155,000 to transfer and wants to keep it 100% in cash, with no investments. The priority is capital preservation and simplicity rather than taking investment risk.
We are currently considering VIAC, finpension, BCN with swisscanto and Raiffeisen.
maybe splitting half bcn half raiffeisen and withdraw it in different fiscal years.
For anyone who has compared these recently:
What are the annual management/account fees for keeping CHF 155k 100% in cash?
What is the current interest rate on the cash balance?
Are there any additional or hidden fees?
Are there any fees or disadvantages when transferring the money or withdrawing it at retirement?
Which provider would you choose, and why?

Thanks in advance for your advice and personal experiences!

Hallo,

Ich habe ein paar Fragen wie ich das Geld versteuern muss.

Habe bei bondora Go and Grow etwas investiert.

Wie muss ich da Steuern zahlen und wie muss ich das dann angeben?

Noch lebe ich in Deutschland, will aber nächstes Jahr in die Schweiz.

Hello people,

I have 15K CHF to invest. I'm already all-in in VT and chill for the long term. I was thinking about looking at some bonds, possibly in IBKR, with a 2 to 3 year investment horizon.

Never bought bonds as I'm still relatively young. Any suggestions on where to park the 15K? Considering mostly EUR and USD options as of now.

If there is any other viable options to protect them from inflation that is not bonds, feel free to suggest!