Hello everyone,

first of all I want to wish you all and also your family a very Happy Easter. Easter is also a celebration day where every year the cycling race “Tour of Flanders” occurs. Most families come together, have lunch as a family and then watch the cycling race.

For sports fanatics this event is one of the TOP events of the year !

Let’s hope this year will be a exciting race ! My top candidates for the victory are Peter Sagan and Greg Van Avermaet. You can learn more about it at the website Flanders Classics.

So let’s discuss what is the Bad News and Good News topic to start the month of April 2018.

The BAD News

Last week of March I received an email of my broker who informed me that they want to apply new tariff plans for my portfolios starting 1st of May. Dependent on my investing behavior, the broker would apply more or less charges.

The Broker came up with three new packages. Green for the allround investor, Blue for active investor, Black for the daytrader. Each package came with a separate tariff plan.

Within the investors community there was a lot of discussion and anger about this change. In March I had already an argument with my broker as they did no longer permit me to write covered calls on some of my positions.

Additionally they wanted to charge me 15 Euro when giving them an order by the phone. Excuse me????

And then when they wanted to guide me to execute the trade online, there was a signed paper missing…Excuse me?? I got so frustrated with this mess….

One investor suggested to make a broker comparison on the website www.brokertarieven.nl

So we did run a simulation on which broker would be best knowing we will execute more options trades in the future while building out our dividend (growth) portfolio.

Guess what…if I continue to use this broker, I will have charges ranging between 285 – 550 Euro. Here is the end result of my simulation.

The killer fee is the service fee the broker Binck starts to implement and charge to the customers like me. A service fee per month of 0,01% of the value of the portfolio. Excuse me ?? Are you out of your mind?? For doing what? What kind of service do you do for this kind of money? This is simply “stealing” money and old school banking according to me. When a company doesn’t have operational excellence or lean and cost effective business processes, they always try to charge those costs to their customers. But customers are no fools….

So what did I decide ? I decided to change brokers for the portfolio of my mom and myself to Tradersonly. This broker is a reseller of Interactive Brokers. They do not have any charges for storing the portfolio, neither for taking any phone order. As you can see below, many services are free of charge.

Opening the account went very smooth this week. Also support was superb. Now I need to transfer portfolios and cash positions. Lowering my costs basis and keeping more money in my pocket is key for investing more in my portfolio and grow my money and the money of my mom.

So in april we will execute this transfer and move on… some banks don’t understand the fact that they can NOT charge services for doing NOTHING. We hope many customers realize that and take action. Don’t let them simply take money out of your pockets….

The Good News

As you could read last year, we got married in August in South America. A wonderful event full of love and happiness.

Here’s the blogpost “New Lifetime Event : Married.”

Which country ? Colombia. Ohh…the country of TV Program Narcos, Pablo Escobar and drugs is mostly the first reaction you get from people from the West. But don’t simply make a judgment on a country based on what you see and hear in the media. Colombia has a beautiful nature, warm people and a great culture. Visit the country and make your own judgment instead of hearing stories on TV. How about safety? I travelled to more than 20 countries and I must admit that I do feel more unsafe in some neighbourhoods in Brussels and New York city than in the city of Bogota.

In October, my wife travelled to Belgium on a tourist visa until her visa expired in December 2017. Before she travelled to Belgium, she submitted all wedding papers to the Belgian embassy.

Last week we got finally the approval from Belgian government that she (and her son) can join her husband and his kids. We will write a separate blog post about this journey as it is a story on itself. Stay tuned on the blog and you will soon read all about it. The great news is that my wife and her son will arrive soon in Brussels airport. And a new life can start for us as a family. You will be able to read our travel and financial objectives going forward.

Final Words

So April 2018 will have an exciting start for us as a family. A lot of changes will occur for my wife and her son. Of course Colombia is totally different than Belgium. Their first focus is to master the Dutch language and learn about the culture and local habits. 

Thanks for reading until the end! Don’t hesitate to leave a comment if you did like this blog post. 

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