[JibsterGamez]

Originally Posted by MarioNintendo

Very interesting! I'm clearly not as well versed as you are in personal finance. I notice that you use a 2.46% average annual annual interest rate, what's the reasoning behind that choice? Is it linked to mortgage?

Unfortunately these are the rates over here for banks that are well known by name / stable in terms of how long they exist. And since the government only guarantees up to €100.000 money back if a bank crashes the mortgage providers do not put a lot of trust in those banks (even if they go up to like 4-5%). 2.46% is actually the HIGHEST rate you're getting with the known banks right now, and even the one I selected is still quite new on the market in terms of how well-trusted they are.

This is all mainly an after-effect of the '07-'08 global crisis (thanks USA), on top of that we had the European debt crisis where several eurozone member states were unable to repay or refinance their government debt. The housing crisis has been hitting insanely hard here as well all leading to a really stagnant economy that's only been getting worse. And then the Russo-Ukrainian war came around, COVID and more and the oil supply got fucked. As you can see this has all led to a big decrease in rates that's only recently been going up again, though it looks like a dead cat bounce so i suspect it'll be back at 1-2% for ALL banks soon again as well.

Here are some historic rates the past 20 years for 10-year and 5-year secured rates. Again, all this is based on the local economy in the Netherlands, but things aren't quite as bright anywhere in the world right now it seems.