What I (mainly) write about
Past experiences, saving money, books I've read, fintech, crowdfunding, etc.
Sunday, 31 January 2021
My crypto adventures and the blockchain world
I’m no believer in making value out of thin air, and for a long time, I’ve been dismissive of what blockchain technology has to offer to the world. For the past year, I’ve tried to look at it from an objective point of view, and this is what I gathered so far.
Monday, 25 January 2021
12 IPOs I’m watching in 2021
Despite all odds, 2020 was a good year for the IPO market. A few companies I was interested in went public and I was able to buy stock: Airbnb, Doordash, Snowflake, and Palantir.
Friday, 15 January 2021
Investing in startups – equity crowdfunding risks and returns – preliminary results after 2 years
In June 2018 I made my first investment in a startup. I’ve joined Crowdcube with big hopes and invested 50 GBP in Graphene Composites, a small UK company building all sorts of products based on, you guessed it, graphene. Since then, I’ve invested more than 20,000 EUR in more than 200 European startups, hoping one day I’ll win big, get rich, and live happily ever after.
Sunday, 03 January 2021
2020 retrospective and new year's resolutions
2021 has come and I try again to make plans. Last year I said that God laughs when men make plans, and I didn’t know how right I was. I wouldn’t call these new year’s resolutions, as this is how I called them last year, and half of them I just ignored. It will be a simple retrospective and plans for a new year.
Tuesday, 22 December 2020
Saving money and my journey to financial responsibility
I was a late bloomer in terms of saving money. I was almost 30 when I started to not spend all my paycheck before the end of the month. It didn’t matter that my income grew exponentially since I started working, I would always spend it all before the next paycheck. I used to make jokes with my employer that I don’t want a pay raise, but I’d like to get my paycheck more often, at least twice a month. It sounded funny to me back then.
Thursday, 24 September 2020
A bit of personal financial history
I don’t intend to give any financial advice on this blog. To make my point clearer here is a bit of my history, including the many mistakes I’ve made along the way.
Monday, 23 March 2020
P2p lending in the time of coronavirus
March has been a crazy month for p2p lending, and not only. The full effects of the current crisis are not yet visible, and there’s a lot more to come.
Sunday, 22 March 2020
European debit and credit cards I use
Here are some of the best European cards I’ve been using for the past years. Free ATM withdrawals globally, cheap currency transfers, saving, trading, and more.
Tuesday, 31 December 2019
2019 retrospective and new year’s resolutions
These were my 2020 resolutions. I’ll get back to them a few months later, and see how much progress (if any) I’ve made. Would be interesting to hear about your new year’s resolutions. If you’re like me and you don’t keep up with them, I’m sure they all sound great.
Sunday, 24 November 2019
Online learning resources I'm using
A few weeks ago my company invited an external speaker and he held this course named “Financial Intelligence”. In essence, it was a good initiative. Teaching IT geeks getting paid high salaries that life is not all about spending.
Sunday, 17 November 2019
The state of fintech in Romania
I’ve built a list of all the fintech startups I could find in my country. Some of them don’t even have a working product yet, others were cannibalized by the competition, while a few others are quite interesting.
Monday, 21 October 2019
A risk vs return analysis of my p2p lending portfolio
In the past year, I’ve tried out almost 30 European p2p lending platforms. In broad lines, they all follow the same business model: I lend money through them and I get paid interest, and they get a fee. But how do I rank them? If I was to make a top 10, I know which platforms would get into that list. I know Mintos would be my top 1 platform, but why is that?
Wednesday, 16 October 2019
6 months around the world – how much I’ve spent?
There are few things in life I enjoy more than traveling. The feeling when I look around and new horizons lay before my eyes makes life truly wonderful.
Wednesday, 14 August 2019
How I run my WordPress site for (almost) free
I received an email last month telling me my hosting subscription is due to expire and I’ll need to renew it. Of course, my hosting provider also told me they’ll be nice and auto-renew my subscription, so I don’t lose my websites. Even though it was a nice thing to do on their part, I disagreed. And I started looking for options.
Monday, 05 August 2019
15 books to read when you travel around the world
I’ve been traveling a lot for the past 6 months. One of the perks of traveling is that you spend a good chunk of your time in transit. Good use of this time for me is to read.
Wednesday, 13 March 2019
4 niche equity crowdfunding platforms you didn't know about
When it comes to equity crowdfunding, my go-to platforms are Seedrs and Crowdcube. These are generic platforms, presenting startups from all over Europe and from every possible industry domain. For more specialized investments, like farming or art, have a look at these 4 crowdfunding platforms.
Friday, 08 March 2019
Top 5 books I've read since I started 2019
I’m keeping a log of good books I’ve read so I can come back to it later and wonder how much I can forget.
Sunday, 13 January 2019
A short guide on p2p lending diversification
Peer to peer investing is a risky business, but there are steps you can take to minimize your risk. At its core, it’s similar to lending money to your friend. He might decide not to pay you back, and you might just lose the money or spend a lot of time to recover it in court.
Sunday, 13 January 2019
How to choose the right p2p lending platform for you
How do you choose a peer to peer lending platform that is safe enough that you minimize your risks of losing your investments?
Sunday, 16 December 2018
Best investments made: reading these 10 books
The best investments I’ve made so far this year are not stocks, ETFs, bonds, gold, crypto, or any crowd investment options on the market. It's reading books.
Tuesday, 11 December 2018
Things to consider before investing in p2p loans
P2P lending existed for a long time. People would borrow money from their neighbors since long ago. What changed is that now p2p lending is done at a much larger scale through the use of technology.
Tuesday, 04 December 2018
My investment portfolio and 8 levels of risk
I did some analysis a few days ago on how my investments are spread and if they’re diversified enough. The way I see it, all my investment portfolio could be split into items belonging to 8 different levels of risk.