August 9, 2026

Yesterday I went to watch a movie with a group of friends. One of them was complaining that she has no idea where her money goes.

This is crazy to me.

I track all my expenses — not down to the cent, but I always know exactly where my money is going. This way, I can think monthly about how to optimize everything.

If you’re this kind of friend, I’m sorry, but this is crazy. Really.

First, build a spreadsheet and split your costs into fixed and variable. I’ll prove soon that you can optimize both.

Why do I call them fixed and variable? Because that’s the traditional way of thinking about them, and it’s precisely why they’re harder to dent.

Fixed Costs — Housing

I want you to track every single euro, and I want you to include all annual taxes too — things like waste tax — split by 12. My monthly fixed and variable costs are €3,008.87. In previous posts I reported a lower number, because I keep optimizing.

My housing costs are €1,856.23, including all annual taxes divided by 12, the mortgage installment, the owners’ association fee, and house insurance.

Fixed Costs — Bills

Item	Amount
Internet Provider	€25.00
Power & Gas	€224.00
Water	€25.00
Cleaning	€108.33
Subtotal — Bills	€382.33

Please don’t tell me there’s nothing you can do about it.

Okay, you’re right about one thing: there’s genuinely nothing to be done about annual taxes, the owners’ association, or leasehold. But there’s plenty you can do about your mortgage installment and your house insurance.

I started my current mortgage at 3.73% last year, and I’ve consistently made extra payments of €2,000 a month. Most people don’t realize that extra payments go straight toward the principal, not the interest — which has several powerful effects: your equity increases, you get the psychological relief of not feeling like you’re pouring money into interest, and your mortgage installment drops. It takes my bank about two months to process it and recalculate the interest, but for every €2,000 I pay extra, my monthly installment drops by roughly €10.

Let it sink.

-€10/month forever.

There’s a second effect people almost never mention: the more you lower your monthly installment, the more your LTV ratio improves — which means less debt relative to your home’s value, which means less risk for the bank. Push that ratio down far enough, and the bank will lower your interest rate on its own, without you ever needing to refinance. Last month, mine dropped from 3.73% to 3.72%, purely from consistent extra payments. It sounds small but it compounds.

I hear a lot of people say “come on, it’s just €10.” Sure, from a single €2,000 payment. But run the actual math: that one €2,000 extra payment doesn’t just save you €10 a month — over the full 30 years of the loan, it saves roughly €1,300 in total interest. Do that every month for a year, and you’re not looking at €10. You’re looking at your installment dropping by roughly €120 after one year, simply from discipline.

Now stack on top of that your bonus, your holiday allowance (no, it does not have to be spent on holidays), your 13th month, and your tax refund. Add up to €10,000 from all of that in a year, and your installment drops by another €50 — €170 less per month, total, after just one year. Get lucky enough to free up €20,000, and you’re at €220 less per month after one year.

There’s no secret here. It’s intentional spending and discipline.

How do I optimize house insurance the same way? Every November, I reassess all my insurance policies using a comparison website that covers every provider independently, and I switch to whichever is cheapest.

So there it is — I’ve just proven you wrong twice. Fixed costs aren’t actually fixed, and this was never about €10.

Let’s move to bills, quickly, because the reasoning is identical. I apply the same November reassessment to insurance and utilities. This year alone, I saved €50 a month by switching my power, gas, and internet providers.

As I’ve said before, my version of FIRE isn’t extreme. Over the years I’ve allowed myself a few guilty pleasures, or mechanisms of peace of mind. Case in point: the cleaning service. I live in a shared flat with two other people, and I want to minimize every possible source of conflict. Since everyone — especially in international households — has their own definition of “clean,” I hired a cleaning lady every other week. On the off weeks, we clean according to a shared spreadsheet with our rotating shifts. Yes, I have a spreadsheet for everything, down to which type of waste each of us is responsible for taking out each week. Mine is paper. We’re all cooperative about it, so everyone goes the extra mile. This time, I got lucky with flatmates — that hasn’t always been true.

If you’re wondering, I started with extreme frugality. This is simply something I’ve added on in the past four years.

Now let’s look at variable costs. My personal variable spending is €770.30 a month.

Variable Costs — Personal

Item	Amount
Groceries	€200.00
Spare time	€120.00
Music streaming	€13.00
AI subscription	€21.78
Personal care	€36.00
Contact lenses	€20.50
Cinema card	€24.00
Phone plan	€15.00
Public transportation	€80.00
Bank fees	€4.00
Travel insurance	€2.69
Legal insurance	€25.13
Health insurance	€157.20
Gym	€51.00
Subtotal — Personal	€770.30

Groceries first. When I talk to people in my circle, I hear some incredible numbers — single people spending €500 to €700 a month. Seriously? I shop at Aldi, Lidl, or Dirk, and when I don’t have time and end up somewhere pricier, I still always buy generic brands. I avoid processed food, which costs a genuinely unnecessary premium. I struggle to understand paying €7 for a pre-made salad — you don’t need to “cook” a salad, you need to chop iceberg lettuce and tomatoes.

I eat properly: chicken, salads, tuna, rice, fruit, all the nutrients I need, and I let myself have one weekly treat every grocery run. Unless I’m sick, I never use grocery delivery, where everything is marked up 100–150% on top of the delivery fee itself.

If I’m short on time, I’m honestly the laziest cook on the planet. I used to meal-prep, which does save a lot of time, but these days a €40 air fryer does the job — chop some zucchini and chicken and you’re set.

I also stock up when there are deals on things that don’t expire, like dishwasher tablets or fabric softener, then spend less in the following weeks to balance it out. And yes, I’m not that extreme anymore — I own a dishwasher, and I use it.

What you won’t find in my budget is a food delivery line. I’m genuinely strict about it. It’s not worth €40 for a burger or €30 for a pizza, and I know people in my circle spending €500 to €1,000 a month on it. If that’s you, you don’t get to complain there’s no money left for anything else. I’d much rather put that money toward another €5 off my mortgage installment. Delivery, for me, is an exception, not a habit — I’ve ordered it twice in four years, both times the first night after moving, as a kind of celebration, mostly because I was too exhausted to cook. I’m the type who unpacks and cleans an entire apartment in one 18-hour stretch.

Now for the “spare time” budget, which I would consider together with the cinema card. Until a year ago, I had €150 a month for this. This year I added a cinema membership at €24 a month and reduced the rest accordingly. I could round it to €125, but I like knowing I’m still saving €5 more than that.

This is one of the biggest points of friction I have with other people’s habits. Plenty of people eat out three or more times a week, averaging €50 a meal once drinks are included — that’s an extra €600 a month. And when it’s not a full meal, people are still spending on four-plus glasses of wine or cocktails.

I don’t drink alcohol. That alone saves an enormous amount of money.

I go out about three times a week. Once, I’ll have a small meal for around €15 plus a Coke Zero for €4. The other two times, I just order a Coke Zero. With every trendy thermos brand on the market right now, there’s really no excuse left. Until last year, I was bringing coffee from home entirely — in a lot of places, bringing your own cup gets you 50 cents off. It’s good for the environment and good for your wallet, and it means I can either save that money or use it to go out one more time that week.

Same logic applies to water — I always carry my own bottle. €30 a week covers everything I need.

The real game-changer was the cinema membership. Before that, I was meeting friends for brunch or drinks, and if you want to spend four hours together, you’re inevitably ordering more than one coffee. Now there are weeks where I just go to the movies with coffee from home and spend nothing at all.

Again, I’m not extremely frugal. I have a cleaning lady, a budget for social activities, a music subscription (I love music), an AI subscription, as you can see, a personal care budget for waxing or the hairdresser, and I use public transportation instead of biking. I don’t love the daily grind of commuting by bike. I did it for years; now I let myself skip it, which costs about €1,060 a year. It’s unnecessary, and it’s a real amount of money, but I’d rather stay productive the whole time. On a bike, I can’t read, work, or listen to music — and that trade-off matters more to me than the savings.

One last note on health insurance: it’s on the pricier side because I keep dental coverage, which I toggle on and off every other year.

Between my salary and my passive income, I could afford to spend more than I do. I choose not to.

The pleasures I do allow myself are a biweekly cleaning service, public transportation, and — drumroll — travel. I love traveling. I love taking two or three multi-week trips a year to explore the world. Of course, I do it on a budget. I rely heavily on Couchsurfing, preferring couples as hosts to avoid bad experiences, and I always check reviews carefully. I also use a Facebook page for female travelers, Host a Sister, that I highly recommend if that applies to you. When I can’t find a host, I use hostels.

I’m definitely not an extremely frugal person. I budget this carefully for a reason: FIRE, and travel.

Now it’s your turn. If you’re like my friend from the movie theater, I’ll be sharing my free spreadsheet template soon.

You can do it.