It's been a few months since I last created an article and I knew this was going to happen at some point. It's not that I lost interest in writing articles for my blog or because I have very little readers anyway. There just isn't really all that much to write about. Or is there? Because of the pandemic I'm pretty much homebound. My client obligates me to work from home, there's a night curfew, I cannot invite (too many) guests, shops, restaurants and bars are closed and worst of all ..... I can't travel.

In the past years I've read several different articles on the topic of 'renting or buying a house'. What is better or wiser? This interests me, because I currently live in a very small house and I would love to add some space to my living conditions. But at what cost and is it worth it? Just about all the articles I've read so far all talk about the financial side of things and although this is a very important part of it, it sure isn't a decisive one. I've done some thinking and here's my view on the matter.

One of the main reasons I want to become financially free is to get rid of 'the need to work'. Don't get me wrong. I like to work, but only because it's fun and not because I need to pay the bills or have an interesting career I can impress others with.

Living in downtown Utrecht has a lot of advantages. I'm close to bars, restaurants, all the big shops and public transport. I live in a reasonably quiet street, but it's still busy enough for you to feel the vibe of a city. Driving a car in downtown Utrecht is frustrating at best and only advised when you really know the city very well. With all the construction works going on lately roads can suddenly be closed, so you need inside information on any alternative routes.

Satellite navigation will not help you in any way!

Unfortunately, It's been a while since my last post. It was actually just a month and a half ago, but I was very keen on posting an article every 2 weeks. It just wasn't possible right now.

I've been quite busy lately with all sorts of activities and I'm loving it. Well, apart from the fact that I can't travel to see my friends.

I still work from home and besides my job I fill my days doing all sorts of things. I work out, educate myself through Udemy and entertain myself on Youtube.

Here are some highlights of how I used my time during the Corona smart lockdown.

It's often difficult to write an article. Especially when I want it to be engaging and fun to read, but like most people I'm also stuck in the house because of the pandemic and since nothing much is happening it becomes challenging to find an interesting subject to write about. One off the main things I've noticed about being in an "intelligent lockdown" is that I lost my sense of rhythm. I still work, but instead of going to the office I work from home and I no longer work 9 to 5.

Writing can be very difficult sometimes. Really!! I've been trying to write a new post for days now and I just can't seem to get an engaging story going on here. Granted, I'm not a writer, but an IT engineer, so having a "writers block" seems to be a very silly statement to make here. I'm trying to become financially free and I write about miscellaneous things I come across hoping to catch your interest. I've been struggling with writing a new post about Mother Nature supposedly getting back at us humans.

Today is the 15th of March, meaning it is my 'peildatum', the day I check all the places where I have some money or investments and record them in my spreadsheet. I also make a little graph to make my "progress" visible. I usually like doing this, but this time I dreaded the moment I actually had to look at the numbers and see what damage the corona virus did to my investments. So, far I lost quite a bit on my investments, but not as much as I expected. However, the end is not in sight so I expect more losses in the coming months.

The corona virus, a.k.a. Sars-Cov2, has spread around the world rapidly causing a lot of problems. Sadly many people lost their lives, many more are sick and it caused a global financial crisis. Even though I think there are too many people in the world I still think it's sad that many people died. Imagine loosing a loved one to this virus. Markets were already struggling a bit with the situation, but in the last week the global markets crashed, big time! I even received an email from my broker about it.

A couple of days ago I went to the grocery store to do some shopping. There was insufficient food in our refrigerator and we felt like eating curry that night. It was just another ordinary typical Dutch day in Utrecht. It was februari, so it was a cold, grey and slightly depressing. When I was almost at the store I noticed a middle-aged man standing outside on the sidewalk talking on his phone. It sounded like he was in difficult discussion with someone on the other end, possibly business related.