The FIRE Belgium Show – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Most Belgians are leaving thousands of euros on the table every single year. 

Why? 

Because they’re still stuck in savings accounts or paying high fees on underperforming bank funds. 

In this episode, I’m showing you how to take control of your financial future by investing in global low-cost index ETFs, in a simple and effective way.

It’s simple because all you really need is a couple of well selected index funds, and then you invest in them each month in just a few clicks, without the stress and work that trading and stock picking requires.

It’s effective, because it’s based on decades of academic research that proves that this approach provides better returns than actively managed funds sold by banks, while costing less in fees and taxes.

In fact, investing effectively is much simpler than what the industry wants you to believe.

And this is the approach I have used to build my 1 million € portfolio and reach financial independence at 33.

Which is why I am sharing the full process of how to invest in ETFs in Belgium in this episode/guide.

I also include a concrete example of a popular optimized portfolio for illustration. That way you have everything you need to get started with index investing with just this episode.

Here is what we cover:

00:00 Intro

01:27 Table of Content

02:03 What is an ETF

03:13 Why invest in ETFs (for investors in Belgium): 4 reasons

03:41 Index ETFs perform better than active strategies

04:53 Index ETFs are generally much cheaper

05:41 Index ETFs can be very tax efficient in Belgium

07:15 Index investing can be done in less than 1 minute per month

07:49 How to select an ETF

09:39 How to buy an ETF in Belgium

10:54 How much should I invest in ETFs

12:47 How often should I invest in ETFs

14:54 How to build your portfolio

18:33 Practical example of investing in a simple and effective ETF portfolio, optimized for Belgium

21:15 How to Build Wealth on Autopilot

22:30 How to get started faster and without the beginner’s mistake

Don’t miss it!

---

►► Free Workshop on Index Investing for Beginners in Belgium: create passive income from the stock market, without paying high fees to banks or advisors, taking unnecessary risks or spending all day analyzing the markets. Free Workshop → https://firebelgium.com/investingworkshop

---

Download the FIRE Belgium Beginner's Guide to Index Investing: https://bit.ly/FIREBGuide

Learn about Financial Independence in Belgium: https://firebelgium.com

Subscribe to the newsletter: https://firebelgium.com/#Subscribe

Join the community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/FIREBelgium

How to optimize your pension as self-employed in Belgium? In this session from Money Week 2025, I speak with Karel Van den Eynde, Public Affairs Manager at Liantis.

He specializes in advising entrepreneurs on optimizing their pension strategies, including government schemes and additional pension options such as the VAPZ/PLCI, POZ/CPTI and IPT/EIP. 

We dive deep into these pension products, breaking down the rules and constraints for each of them. 

We also discuss the optimal way to use the pension products, comparing their fiscal advantages, but also discussing their expected returns. 

And this is something important for me. Most tax and pension specialists in Belgium will advise products based on their fiscal advantages. 

But I think they’re wrong. Instead of looking at the tax deductions, we should compare our options for building our pension based on the expected returns, net of taxes. Because in the end, what matters is that we optimize how hard our savings are working for us, not how little taxes we’re paying.

---

►► Free Workshop on Index Investing for Beginners in Belgium: create passive income from the stock market, without paying high fees to banks or advisors, taking unnecessary risks or spending all day analyzing the markets. Free Workshop → https://firebelgium.com/investingworkshop

---

Download the FIRE Belgium Beginner's Guide to Index Investing: https://bit.ly/FIREBGuide

Learn about Financial Independence in Belgium: https://firebelgium.com

Subscribe to the newsletter: https://firebelgium.com/#Subscribe

Join the community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/FIREBelgium

Over the last 20 years, the stock market went up by 500%!! *

1000 euros invested 20 years ago could have become 6000 today. That’s insane.

But you know what’s even crazier… and very sad…

The vast majority of investors only got a tiny piece of this growth.

In fact, the average investor investing in the stock market barely managed to get 100% return over the same period. The average investor that had invested 1000 euros 20 years ago, would have 2000 euros today.

That’s a difference… and a loss of 400%. 

4000 euros in this case, but much much larger sums for most people.

In this episode, we review the 5 biggest reports and studies that explore Active vs Passive Investing so that we can better understand

- The difference in performance between active and passive investing

- Why there such a enormous gap in performance

- What we (individual investors) can do about it 

If you’re curious about

- How evidence-based investing works

- How to maximize your chance of having high investment returns

- How active and passive investing compare

Then this episode is for you.

And if you know anyone who is investing with bank funds (including pillars 2 and 3 pension funds), then share this episode with them.

—

*The S&P 500 went up 500% over the past 2 decades. The average investor in the meantime only got 100%. And this is before inflation. Source: JP Morgan Guide to the Markets.

Links mentioned in the episode:

DALBAR QAIB Studies: 

https://www.dalbar.com/QAIB

https://www.ifa.com/articles/dalbar_2016_qaib_investors_still_their_worst_enemy

JP Morgan Guide to the Markets:

https://am.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-am-aem/global/en/insights/market-insights/guide-to-the-markets/mi-guide-to-the-markets-us.pdf

SPIVA Scorecard: 

https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/research-insights/spiva/spiva-library/

Morningstar Active vs Passive Barometer:

https://www.morningstar.com/en-uk/lp/european-active-passive-barometer

ESMA Costs and Performance of EU Retail Investment Products:

https://www.esma.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2023-12/ESMA50-524821-3052_Market_Report_on_Costs_and_Performance_of_EU_Retail_Investment_Products.pdf

The Academic Advantage: 

https://www.ifa.com/pdfs/the-academic-advantage.pdf

---

►► Free Workshop on Index Investing for Beginners in Belgium: create passive income from the stock market, without paying high fees to banks or advisors, taking unnecessary risks or spending all day analyzing the markets. Free Workshop → https://firebelgium.com/investingworkshop

---

Download the FIRE Belgium Beginner's Guide to Index Investing: https://bit.ly/FIREBGuide

Learn about Financial Independence in Belgium: https://firebelgium.com

Subscribe to the newsletter: https://firebelgium.com/#Subscribe

Join the community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/FIREBelgium

What are the best stock index ETFs for investors in Belgium?

What are the most diversified, cost-effective, tax-efficient, high performance ETFs that we can invest in from Belgium?

In this episode, we cover:

• The FIRE Belgium ETF selection checklist - to help you pick the best ETFs

• How to practically check each of those criteria for an ETF (using IWDA as an example)

• Top 5 ETFs that fulfill those criteria for investors in Belgium

• Comparison of the 5 ETFs

This episode is quite technical and better suited for people who are already familiar with index investing.

Note that selecting a stock index ETF is only a small part of what you need to do to be a successful index investor, including a suitable asset allocation, tax management, broker selection, etc.

To learn more about the rest I recommend you check the free workshop: https://firebelgium.com/investingworkshop

To get full support to build your Personal Investment Plan and implement it, join the Index Investing Online Course: https://academy.firebelgium.com/courses/index-investing-online-course-aao

---

►► Free Workshop on Index Investing for Beginners in Belgium: create passive income from the stock market, without paying high fees to banks or advisors, taking unnecessary risks or spending all day analyzing the markets. Free Workshop → https://firebelgium.com/investingworkshop

---

Download the FIRE Belgium Beginner's Guide to Index Investing: https://bit.ly/FIREBGuide

Learn about Financial Independence in Belgium: https://firebelgium.com

Subscribe to the newsletter: https://firebelgium.com/#Subscribe

Join the community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/FIREBelgium

How to pick the right stock index ETF?

How to find the best index funds for investors based in Belgium?

What are the key criteria to select the perfect low-cost stock ETF, optimized for Belgian taxes ?

In Belgium, the investing world is mostly controlled by banks and powerful lobbies. But good investing is not as complicated as what the industry wants you to believe. 

In fact, research proves that a simple portfolio of index funds performs better than 90% of bank funds.

All you need is:

1. A low-cost broker account 

2. A balanced portfolio of 2 or 3 (well-selected) ETFs

3. A tailored Personal Investing Plan

4. The right long-term investing mindset

I've been teaching this simple approach since 2015.

In this episode, we dive into the 10 selection criteria to select the best index ETFs for Belgian investors.

---

►► Free Workshop on Index Investing for Beginners in Belgium: create passive income from the stock market, without paying high fees to banks or advisors, taking unnecessary risks or spending all day analyzing the markets. Free Workshop → https://firebelgium.com/investingworkshop

---

Download the FIRE Belgium Beginner's Guide to Index Investing: https://bit.ly/FIREBGuide

Learn about Financial Independence in Belgium: https://firebelgium.com

Subscribe to the newsletter: https://firebelgium.com/#Subscribe

Join the community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/FIREBelgium

Research shows that investors underperform the market by 3 to 4% on average each year! 

That’s half of the returns of the market!

And this is due to investment biases and mistakes many investors make.

In this episode with Thomas Laureys, we talk about the 4 most common mistakes and biases that prevent investors from getting good investment returns. And how to prevent them.

We dive deep into behavioral finance and investor psychology and share our thoughts on how to avoid those biases and become better investors.

Thomas is a freelance writer who writes about investing and behavioral finances for organizations like the VFB and many big finance newspapers in Belgium. He’s read more books on investing than anyone I know. He ‘s one of my favorite writers on LinkedIn where he shares lots of great knowledge for investors.

---

►► Free Workshop on Index Investing for Beginners in Belgium: create passive income from the stock market, without paying high fees to banks or advisors, taking unnecessary risks or spending all day analyzing the markets. Free Workshop → https://firebelgium.com/investingworkshop

---

Download the FIRE Belgium Beginner's Guide to Index Investing: https://bit.ly/FIREBGuide

Learn about Financial Independence in Belgium: https://firebelgium.com

Subscribe to the newsletter: https://firebelgium.com/#Subscribe

Join the community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/FIREBelgium

How to invest better than private banks?

Tim was a private banker and fully convinced active fund manager for more than 10 years. 

One day he decided to compare private bank funds to index funds. 

After seeing the difference in costs and performance, he could never turn back. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• How to invest better than private banks

• How private banks work and how they benchmark their own performance

• How Tim discovered the power of index investing

• By how much do private bank funds underperform index funds (it’s insane…)

• The psychology of the investor in retirement

We compare the performance of Defensive / Balanced and Dynamic bank funds to their equivalent in index ETFs over the past 5 years… and the differences are enormous!

If you invest with a bank or if you’re curious about the difference between private banks and index investing, this episode is for you!

Tim is the founder of vermogensgids.be, one of the only flat-fee independent financial advisors in Belgium. He teaches private banking at Artevelde University in Ghent.

He is the co-author of De Hangmatbelegger: Zorgeloos beleggen voor mensen met weinig tijd. Tim is active on the board of the Vlaamse Federatie van Beleggers and he manages the Facebook group “Beleggen”.

Tim is also an independent consultant for FIRE Belgium. You book a call with Tim here.

---

►► Free Workshop on Index Investing for Beginners in Belgium: create passive income from the stock market, without paying high fees to banks or advisors, taking unnecessary risks or spending all day analyzing the markets. Free Workshop → https://firebelgium.com/investingworkshop

---

Download the FIRE Belgium Beginner's Guide to Index Investing: https://bit.ly/FIREBGuide

Learn about Financial Independence in Belgium: https://firebelgium.com

Subscribe to the newsletter: https://firebelgium.com/#Subscribe

Join the community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/FIREBelgium

Jasper Vekeman is a financial journalist who is passionate about sustainable investing. He is the co-founder of Duurzaam Beleggen Academy (https://duurzaambeleggen.academy/), where he teaches sustainable investing, and he is the Editor in Chief for the magazine of the Vlaamse Federatie van Beleggers (VFB)

I recently attended the 2nd Belgian Impact Day organized by Belgium Impact Finance and had a great conversation with Jasper.

Today he joins me on the FIRE Belgium show to talk about sustainable and impact investing.

We talk about

• the basic concepts behind sustainable, ESG and impact investing (the pros and cons)

• the various ways we can do good as investors

• how to approach ESG and impact investing as an index investor

• and so much more.

We dive deep into the question of what real impact we can have as investors.

If you're interested in being ethical with your money, this episode is for you.

---

►► Free Workshop on Index Investing for Beginners in Belgium: create passive income from the stock market, without paying high fees to banks or advisors, taking unnecessary risks or spending all day analyzing the markets. Free Workshop → https://firebelgium.com/investingworkshop

---

Download the FIRE Belgium Beginner's Guide to Index Investing: https://bit.ly/FIREBGuide

Learn about Financial Independence in Belgium: https://firebelgium.com

Subscribe to the newsletter: https://firebelgium.com/#Subscribe

Join the community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/FIREBelgium

JL Collins, author of the international best seller “The Simple Path to Wealth” also known as the godfather of financial independence is back on the FIRE Belgium Show to discuss his new book “PATHFINDERS: Extraordinary Stories of People Like You on the Quest for Financial Independence—And How to Join Them"

In this episode, we discuss:

• How to invest simply and effectively

• How to reach financial independence

• Why not caring about all this investing stuff can be a superpower

• How FU Money can help you help you negotiate with your employer

• How JL Collins actually spent all his money on the most luxurious thing there is

• JL Collins' biggest investment mistakes (and how you can avoid them)

• Incredible stories of people from all around the world on the path to financial independence.

Get the book and leave a review here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/180409000X 

JL Collins’ blog: https://jlcollinsnh.com

---

►► Free Workshop on Index Investing for Beginners in Belgium: create passive income from the stock market, without paying high fees to banks or advisors, taking unnecessary risks or spending all day analyzing the markets. Free Workshop → https://firebelgium.com/investingworkshop

---

Download the FIRE Belgium Beginner's Guide to Index Investing: https://bit.ly/FIREBGuide

Learn about Financial Independence in Belgium: https://firebelgium.com

Subscribe to the newsletter: https://firebelgium.com/#Subscribe

Join the community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/FIREBelgium

What are the best brokers for investors in Belgium? Which ones are the cheapest? Which ones are the safest? Which ones are the easiest to use? In this episode, we analyse the top 10 brokers in Belgium, with all the pros and cons! It's a long episode because it's a deep dive into all things investment brokers. We share all our knowledge on how they work and how to pick the best one for your situation and your preference. And at the end of the episode we tell which brokers we prefer and why! You can find the FIRE Belgium Broker Comparison Table on the FIRE Belgium website, https://firebelgium.com/brokers -- Brokers are an important part of index investing. But it's only one part of the system you need to setup. You also need to understand taxes, pick the right ETFs, determine your asset allocation, build your personal investment plan, and then figure out all the practical stuff. It can feel overwhelming. And to help you I invite you to watch the Free Workshop on Index Investing for Beginners: https://firebelgium.com/investingwork... In the workshop you will learn: - What makes index investing the best way to invest for the long term - How to get better results than banks and professional fund managers and protect yourself during market crashes - How to invest well with 100 euros (you don’t need much to get started!) in less than 5 minutes a month - How to get started with index investing Belgium in just a few weeks – my practical roadmap to learn everything you need to know and start investing with confidence. Watch the workshop on demand here: https://firebelgium.com/investingwork... And if you want quick responses to your questions, Toon (who is the special guest on this episode) and myself are also available for 1-on-1 consultation calls. You will find those details on https://firebelgium.com/1on1