Investing Starter Course - Germany transcript

I wanted to give you a quick introduction so that you can understand if this course is for you or not and for this I've made a short slide and a short introduction so that you can understand like what this is going to be about and how it is going to help you. First of all, um, about me, my name is Bharat. I did my masters, um, in international management engineering at TU Hamburg. And then afterwards, I went on to build, um, a few businesses which did pretty well and I invested most of the money I made there into the stock market and things have worked out pretty well, um, in the sense that the portfolio is now sitting at almost like 2 million euros.

So, I learned a lot of things. I've been investing, uh, in the stock market now since more than 5 years now. And, um, how I started was completely different than how I am doing things now because, of course, before when I was just a beginner, I had no plan whatsoever. I had no strategy. I had no idea what kind of money I'm supposed to be saving every single month. Do I do lump sum investing, dollar cost averaging, things like that.

So, there were like many different things and the interesting thing was like even the money that I thought I have ready for investing, that money was actually not for investing because every single euro which has some kind of deadline simply becomes the money that you cannot uh, touch. All right, like if you say, okay, like in 3 years I have to invest 30,000 euros for the down payment for an apartment or I have to buy this car in 2 years time, things like that.

Like all of that money is not something that we're going to touch simply. So, all of these things we learned, uh, over the years and things essentially like became very different. So, I'm going to explain you all of those things, um, in the program because again, I come from India myself. Um, if I did not move to Germany, I was looking at a job which would have paid me around 120 euros per month and, um, now like things are of course like completely different and a few things played a role of that, of course, like I was able to um speak German fluently.

So, for example, if you will go to the German page here, that is going to give you access to the German courses, uh the course in the German language. So, I've recorded that in German, and this one is going to be in English. It's going to be five simple lessons, and in the five simple lessons we're going to discuss the following things. So, it's an investing starter class. It's built for uh people who are living in Germany.

And the thing is like when you move to Germany, like nobody gives you the financial manual. Like you just hear about things from one person, other person, things like that because most of the content in Germany is either by consultants uh who get a cut in getting you signing up um for some kind of like private pension plans, things like that, or it is going to be in German. And both of these things are something which do not really um support the growth into this entire field at all.

Like And that's what I see sometimes with expats which is they will spend multiple years and not invest at all in the market because they do not know if they want to stay in Germany at all or not. Right? Like all of these things are essentially big pitfalls because even if you think that you want to like leave Germany or something, like it there's no reason for you not to start investing now because you can simply move the portfolio with you.

That is not going to be a big drama. Like we can find brokers which help you with that. And there are going to be brokers which we can use throughout the EU. What I'm using, for example, I can move to any country in EU EU and I can still keep on using the broker. The day I decide, "Okay, I want to move out of Europe." I can just simply move my portfolio from this broker to another broker which is going to have um worldwide accessibility and I can like simply carry on my investments from there.

You so, you don't have to sell all of your investments necessarily either. So, that's essentially what I'm trying to do differently with this. So, I also run an Instagram page called Finance Germany. So, there I essentially talk about like banking, investing, taxes, retirement, and so on. Now, you know you should probably invest, but how does it actually work in Germany, right? So, like which broker are you supposed to choose?

Which ETF? How much money you're supposed to have in cash? How are the gains taxed, right? So, like the capital gains. What are the different kind of taxes which apply? What are the different kind of uh tax-free limits which apply? And what if I leave Germany? So, like these are kind of the basic like like not basic, but like broad themes that we're going to discuss so that you can get started. And once you get started and you need further help in what like help me set things up or like am I in the right path or something?

I can also help you with that further. So, the internet gives you advice which country's that advice for, right? Like most of the English content you see, it is for US. And for your home country, of course, like things are different. You probably also have like better idea there because of friends and family, things like that. That's why the problem that I'm trying to solve here is uh specifically for Germany because um I have a lot of experience in this field.

Uh during my studies, I also had subjects like corporate finance, accounting, things like that. So, I can also understand the parts behind the stocks and ETFs also better. Um real portfolio and real numbers. So, I've already shown you this with Scalable Capital. So, this is my portfolio right now. Um not everything um you know, is going to be always plus. There were also like months where like things were actually very bad.

So, for example, if I show you my portfolio at this moment, um there were also like times when it was like minus 128,000. Minus. So, 125 you're seeing here, but somewhere around here is like also 128,000 minus. That was the worst like scenario that we had seen so far. But overall, if you see now, it's like almost 96% plus. And almost like a million euros in profit that we have so far here. So, I have a lot of idea with this and this is exactly what I'm going to teach you so that like you don't have this hesitation on how to like start at all.

I come from India and I moved to Germany. Now, and then I did my masters at TU Hamburg. I built multiple online businesses. I became German citizen then and then like essentially I left Germany and I built my portfolio which is now almost 2 million euros. Living abroad already means figuring out things on your own, right? Like you have to do a lot of things on your own. So, but the investing part is not something that you have to essentially like also postpone.

Because one thing that you might know about compound investing or like compound interest is anyways the longer time you can let a a specific amount of money work for you, the lesser amount you need, right? The later you start, the more amount you need invested in order to get to a specific retirement goal. So, all of those things I also like explain to you here itself. So, what are the five simple lessons? The first one is the money system.

So, every single euro has four different buckets it goes inside. What are those buckets and how much money belongs in each of those buckets I will explain to you. Stocks and ETFs so you understand what you're actually buying before you buy it and I will also show you real examples. Then third is investing in Germany so deposit tax allowances for Pauschale Erspara um Pauschbetrag and so on. So, I will translate all of these things to you and explain to you like what it actually means to you.

The Germany's new retirement system. So, this is going to be a massive change from 2027 2027 where the government is actually going to help you in investing in stocks. So, when you yourself invest in stocks, you choose your own funds, things like that. There's going to be up to 540 euros that the government is going to pay on top of the investments that you're making per year. And that's a great thing because like that is just because you are kind of taking your pension in your own hand.

Um that's um very very beneficial from the government side and the talks are that this is going to also like um adjust with inflation every single year. So, that would be very interesting to see like how things develop. Um and then the lesson five is essentially like what I would do differently today, like you know, how I started, how things are now, and um the things that probably you shouldn't maybe making the same mistakes with. >> [snorts] >> So, again, I've already um told you about this.

Um and all of these examples that I will take with you, like these are going to be uh very um clear with uh real-life examples with just ETF and so on, so that you will have towards the end uh a complete picture. And within the five lessons, you will be able to essentially open your depot, you will be able to choose your first ETF or stock, and you will be able to like, you know, um start investing. So, most important thing is like, you don't have to become a finance expert.

Look, most of us have a job, right? So, most of us have a job, most of us have our businesses, things like that. Um I'm not teaching you trading. Like that is something I have tried a few times, and this uh sometimes work and it sometimes doesn't work. So, this is not something where I can tell you, yeah, like, you know, for sure, like it's a great decision for you to do. So, I'm not teaching you that. Like, the main thing that I'm teaching you is how you can um invest in medium to long term.

And also, what kind of different amounts? Because the way you're going to invest 5,000 euros is going to be completely different than what you're going to invest 500,000 euros. So, those are going to be like different kind of conversations that we are going to have. But ba- on the basis of that, like the basic ideas like when we come up with the perfect strategy for you, you simply have to spend maybe like an hour a week, you know, an hour a month or something just to check in and make sure like everything is going according to plan.

And it's going to be just running completely on autopilot. So, you don't have to do anything there. And the benefit of like investing by yourself is that anytime you need access to funds, you will be able to sell your securities so that you have liquid cash in hand. But when you're like making these kind of contracts with Riester Rentner, private pension, things like that, there's a lock-in period. And you can only take out the money after the lock-in period.

So, those kind of things I also explain to you like, you know, how things work in Germany essentially and what you should be like in best case scenario doing. So, my basic kind of request to you is going to be that stop postponing your invest- investment investment system because the thing is the longer you wait, the more you have to invest the money. And the thing is the older self, like yourself in 10 years, is not going to have the same earning opportunities that you have right now.

Now, it's not going to have the same saving opportunities that you have. So, that's why the sooner you can start with the money that you have in your hand, the better it is, right? And there's no stress or there's no like um commitment or um forcing you, no, you have to do this, you uh have to like, you know, it's not a sales call. So, it's just a lesson. It's five lessons. You go through them at your own pace, with your own comfort.

But the most important thing is you go through these five lessons because there's no pressure at the end of the lesson that you have to do a specific thing. You go through them. In the worst case scenario, you're going to learn something. In the best case scenario, you're going to actually start your investment journey after finishing these five lessons itself. Huh? So, maximum it takes you 20 minutes per lesson. I think there are some lessons which are 30 minutes.

So, it takes you around like 2 and 1/2 hours of time, 3 hours of time total, and you'll be done with everything, and you can make your first investments after that. If you need further help from that, there are also resources in the course that you can use so that you can contact me. We can sit down together and we can then speak. All right? So, I look forward to forward to having you in the course, and I hope you learn something good there.

See you in the course.