Investments

A few years ago I bought a property in rural Latvia (which is a member state of the European Union) for under EUR 4,000 - most of the time I thought this has been a bad investment.  Since my original purchase I have additionally invested about EUR 14,000, making my total around EUR 18,000, and this Summer for the first time I feel I could actually realize this apartment for EUR 25,000 or at least EUR 20,000 without much hassle. See the latest developments here A few weeks ago we bought a nice…

In 2022 there were 21  out of 27 European Union member states with an official minimum wage set by the government. Turns out this is already the eighth (#9) article about minimum wages in European Union featured on the blog. To keep it up, here is the raw data for minimum wages across European Union in 2022. Please don't judge too hard, data are taken from this article on Wikipedia, and applied some basic calculations for yearly growth. The minimum wage in European Union member countries…

On June 13th, 2022 I bought 40 shares of AMS: INGA (ING Groep NV) paying EUR 9.45 per share.  I'm now holding 140 shares with ING stock in my portfolio and my average buy price is EUR 10.16.  The ING Group is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Amsterdam. Its primary businesses are retail banking, direct banking, commercial banking, investment banking, wholesale banking, private banking, asset management, and insurance services My goal is to…

Welcome to another article in the series of stock picking. The other morning I was talking with my fiancee over the Whatsapp chat and as she works in the translation field, she suggested taking a closer look at the RWS company. She sent me the following URL: RWS shares drop 19% after BPEA abstains from takeover As I've been already looking into translation, and machine translation stocks in the past, most I was able to find were London or Hong-Kong based, which kind of is not attractive to…

With this article, I'm launching a new section in the blog - stock picking. One of the first stocks I would like to talk about - is TLRY brands inc. In fact, I have already talked about this stock quite often in my newsletter and YouTube videos. To keep it simple I want to list my ideas in one place - any yes, guessed it right, my blog. This is not trading advice. Investments in stocks, funds, bonds, or cryptos are risk investments and you could lose some or all of your money. Do your due…

After spending a weekend in Batumi I decided to take a closer look at the booming, but somehow stagnating Batumi real estate market. At the start, I couldn't believe that there are real estate offers starting $750 per square meter. Now I have a feeling if I would look more carefully, and bargain a bit I could get something even for $500 in the new development projects. Batumi Real Estate Crypto Investment   After contacting a few real estate developers in Batumi I was getting quite…

For years I've been against real estate investments, as I have never really understood them, or they have seemed out of the reach because of the high price attached. Instead, I prefer the stock market and bitcoin. Let's say I invest in what I understand. I cannot say I understand the stock market 100%, even less for cryptocurrencies, but at least I know how to make money out of them Batumi Real Estate Crypto Investment Real estate for profit-generating seems - way too complicated to me, and…

A few years ago I made a broader goal of achieving 1 million dollars in my savings account by the time before I will turn 60 in 2045.  The plan went well until the Pandemic hit my portfolio in March 2020, later that year I bought an apartment in rural Latvia I really didn't need and spent a lot of my funds there on renovation works. Also, we have kiddo now, the cost of schooling at an international school here in Tbilisi now cost us about $5,500 per year, but soon will reach $24,000 per anum…

Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft is a major German bank operating as a universal bank, headquartered in Frankfurt am Main. In the 2019 financial year, the bank was the second largest in Germany by the total value of its balance sheet. The bank is present in more than 50 countries around the world and provides almost a third of Germany's trade finance. In 2017, it handled 13 million customers in Germany and 5 million customers in Central and Eastern Europe. Commerzbank is a member of the Cash…

Welcome to the fifty-ninth (#59) dividend income report, covering earnings I've made from dividend-paying stocks in March 2022. Last month we spent both in Georgia and Latvia. We had a Spring break from QSI school in Tbilisi and we decided to visit Latvia, my daughter had a chance to pick up some Latvian, and I had a chance to install floors at our Vilgåle apt. Also, we bought an old Mercedes Benz ML 400 SUV car, so we have transport next time when in Latvia. Rental cars add up in the end.…