Crush Fix

2020 started for me with a net worth a bit over €50 000, of which about 20k was relatively liquid. I thought I had been a rather good investor for some years already. Though, deep down I knew it wasn't true. I hadn't been properly tracking progress. In blogs, people often listed their passive income and its growth over time. I wanted that, too. To be able to say when you can support yourself through investing alone.  I doubted I had any passive income. Yes, the 10k invested in Interactive Brokers did produce some dividends now and then but the $10 monthly account fee was taken more reliably. Account fee was not tax-deductible in my case, so, taxes ate up even more of the profit. I decided to close the account by end-of-year 2020 and only come back if I could do it from under a company and with larger sums. There was no rush and I ended up receiving the last of my money in November. I've had less than positive experiences with P2P lending in the past but was ready to get ba...

In August 2016, my father said he had started using Bondora after reading an article of how some guy's teenage daughter puts 5€ from every allowance she gets there. I had heard of Mintos, Bondora (no link as I wish you well) and maybe some more platforms but the whole field seemed a bit sketchy as  P2P lending  was and is not an old and respected way of investing. At the time, it was even more fresh, most platforms that existed were not even two years old yet. Most platforms we have today, had not been founded. As recommended by fatherly authority, I decided to try Bondora out. I also trusted it more than Mintos just because it is an Estonian company and Mintos is Latvian. No real research was involved but I remembered that Latvian economy did not do well in The Great Recession some years earlier. The thing about Bondora's interface was, and probably still is, that it shows you prominently how much exactly you could earn from a loan if the interest was truly paid fully an...

Introduction When prospective investors ask in forums how to start investing, they often get a response as if they should first discover the true purpose of their life and get a degree in finance. Things like, before you start you have to know what you want to achieve in the end, what is your risk tolerance, and know about all types of investing, their pros, cons, and taxation nuances.  To be hit with those questions right at the start is, in my opinion, overwhelming, not helpful, and could result in instant surrender. It is all coming from a good place, if not from a desire to grandstand, but for many people it is better to just start with something. Put an amount of money, they find insignificant enough, somewhere and see what happens. This is one of the reasons I would like to share my personal story of investing, failing, giving up, getting back up, deviating from plan, making new plans, trying new strategies, succeeding at times, etc. After a while, most of us know what the bo...