Hi! I am Fleur from Rotterdam in The Netherlands. On 1 July 2020, my big dream became reality: I was able to quit fulltime work to travel the world. At that point, I was 40 years old and I was able to retire completely. Together with my former boyfriend, I sailed to Mediterranean for 1,5 years. After that I hopped on board of the boat of friends to cross the Atlantic Ocean. At the moment, I'm travelling through Europe with my campervan.

Dreaming about my ideal life, I always imagined myself travelling the world. I went on (longer) holidays to South Africa and Asia but I wanted to see more of the world. However, I never would have imagines being able to do that fulltime without having to work for an income anymore.

Let me share with you how I got to this point.

After graduating from university, I didn't buy a house with a mortgage like most of my friends. Instead, me and my former boyfriend lived in a small one-bedroom rental apartment. We kept saving money until we could afford to buy an apartment from our own savings. In 2010, I bought my first apartment. I was so happy and proud! I didn't need a mortgage, which meant less expenses and more financial stability.

I never was a big spender, but when I became entrepreneur, I really started living frugally. My income could fluctuate and the idea of having no financial buffer, wasn't appealing at all. Being an entrepreneur taught me that you don't need to spend a lot of money to live a nice and comfortable lifestyle.

In that period, I also was looking for alternative ways to create a pension for myself. Being an entrepreneur this wasn't arranged, so I figured that investing in real estate would be the a smart option. The invested money would hold its value for the long term or (if I was lucky) might even be worth more at the end. At that time, I was living in Rotterdam in the Netherlands and the prices for houses were relatively low. The real estate market looked very promising.

To be able to buy a second real estate property, we focussed on saving more money. When we had enough money to invest, we bought a new house. However, we didn't want to sell our apartment. That's when we decided to rent it out. This decision was a turning point! By renting our old apartment out, I experienced the power of not only investing money but also of generating a direct extra (passive) income. I was able to generate quite a lot of additional savings every year due to our rental property.

With the rental income coming in, it felt like my dream of travelling the world was getting closer. After I came across a news article about Matt and Jessica, our dream of travelling the world by a sailboat was sparked. This couple saved 100.000 dollars in three years and bought a boat to go sailing (if you are interested, this is the article about Matt and Jessica).

Their story made it clear: we wanted to buy our own sailboat! When we were on holiday in Italy - sitting at Lago Maggiore - we wrote down our financial plan on a piece of paper. We calculated that to make this dream possible, we would need to buy an extra real estate property to rent out. This set-up would provide us with enough passive income to comfortably live on a boat. In addition, we had ofcourse also save enough money to buy our dream boat.

Once the plan was in place, I really started to put in the effort! I became even more cautious about spending money. It took me an additional 4 years to get from that holiday in Italy to leave the dock on the 1st of July 2020 on our own brand new catamaran. I was completely financially free.

I'm not a millionaire! I just learned to manage my personal finances in a successful way. Saving money, investing in assets and ultimately breaking free from needing a job to cover your expenses. I am currently living off my passive income, while travelling the world and we want you to be able to do the same!