Your coast FIRE number, with the state pension counted
Your coast FIRE number is the sum that lets you stop saving for retirement and carry on working. Count the state pension, work until it starts, and the sum shrinks.
Money Mindset
The behaviour and meaning layer: psychology, purpose, and the big transitions that reshape what money means to you.
Most money problems aren’t maths problems. People who know exactly what they should do still don’t do it, and the reasons live somewhere other than the spreadsheet. This section is about those reasons.
Financial Psychology covers the habits and biases that drain an account whatever arrives in it, from mental accounting to the way shops are designed to make you spend. The Financial Purpose pages take on the bigger question of what the money is for, starting with what financial independence means once you strip away the permanent-holiday version.
Each piece cites the research it leans on, but the aim is practical: to spot a pattern in yourself and change the setup around it, not to feel worse about it.
Featured
Our best attempts.
Your stock picks were fine. The trading is what cost you
You picked your broker on about €4 of commission and handling. Currency conversion on a €5,000 US-share round trip is €25 (DEGIRO, September 2026).
The cost of doing nothing with your money, and what to fix first
Four money lines go stale at once: savings, tariffs, an uninvested surplus, and a pension rate you never set. Here's the ten-year bill, and what to fix first.
How shops trick you into spending more, and which of it is illegal.
Consumer authorities checked 314 online traders across Black Friday 2025, and only 40% fully complied with the EU's discount rules. Other tricks here are illegal too.
Financial Psychology
The hedonic treadmill: why you get used to being richer
You got the raise. The new flat. The gym upgrade. And six months later, none of it feels like anything. That is the hedonic treadmill.
Money dysmorphia and doom spending: the money anxieties the internet named
The internet named two money anxieties, money dysmorphia and doom spending. What each means, whether either is a real diagnosis, and what helps.
The psychology of financial goal setting, minus the willpower myth
You don't need more willpower or a nicer vision board. You need an if-then plan and one automatic transfer that fires without asking you.
10 cognitive biases that are costing you money (and how to fix them)
Find €100 and you get a small lift; lose the same €100 and it lands harder. That one quirk drives ten money mistakes, each with a fix you can actually set up.
Loss aversion: why you're too scared to sell losing stocks
That losing share isn't an investment any more. It's a small shrine you tend, waiting for it to apologise. Here's the disposition effect, and the way out.
Financial therapy: what it is, and who it's for
Financial therapy treats your relationship with money, not the money. Who it helps, what it costs in Europe, whether it works, and how to find a real one.
Financial Purpose
What is financial independence? Not a permanent holiday
Financial independence is a coverage test, not a wealth level: non-work income covers your costs, so work turns optional. Europe changes the maths.
Working out what enough actually looks like: values-based budgeting, the FI question, and aligning money with what you genuinely want.
All Financial Purpose posts →All posts → – Financial Purpose