Unfortunately, my health has thwarted my plans, so I have only now been able to write the desired article about our finances.
Instead, it now covers the entire first half of 2024 and not just Q01/24.
As already mentioned, we deregistered in Germany on 31.12.2023 and moved our main residence to Indonesia. As a consequence of this, we are allowed to stay in Germany for a maximum of 6 months/year (183 days/year) (which, to be honest, we haven't done for several years), as otherwise we would be liable to pay tax in Germany again, which we definitely don't want.
Why did we emigrate?
The most important reason is that we both simply feel very comfortable in Indonesia.
Life is much less stressful, it slows us down, we are closer to my wife's family, we also save a lot on taxes and duties and have a standard of living that we couldn't afford in Germany.
What has changed professionally?
As you may remember, I used to be the VP of Global Service and Operations for a US medical device company. With the relocation of our main residence from Germany to Indonesia, I have given up responsibility for North and South America, so that since 01.01.2024 I have "only" been responsible for EMEA and AP, which suits me very well.
At the moment I am unfortunately still too often within Europe for work, but hopefully this will change in the second half of the year, so that I should then spend 75% of my time in Asia or at home in Indonesia.
What has changed financially?
First of all, since January 2024, my gross salary has been transferred to an Indonesian bank account in euros every month by my employer, which honestly works extremely well and, after a few teething problems, my salary is now credited in real time. You get used to the fluctuations due to the exchange rates and as they are in a small percentage range, they honestly don't bother me either.
Health insurance, pension etc.
In Indonesia, we are "only" covered by state health insurance, which is good if you need a plaster, but is otherwise not recommended. As a result, we have also taken out 100% private health insurance to cover everything.
As I had a severe slipped disc at the beginning of 2024, I realized sooner than expected that this was the right choice, as I received 100% care in line with the best medical standards and the health insurance company reimbursed me within 48 hours of submitting the invoices.
There is no pension insurance in Indonesia, everyone has to provide for themselves or the principle is that the children provide for their parents. This may sound frightening to some, but in reality it works very well as family cohesion is much closer than in other countries and cultures.
Let's now take a look at the income and expenditure for the first half of 2024:
Income
We had the following income in the first half of 2024
Salary: € 141,900.00
Bonus 2023: €99,300.00
Pool villa revenue: €21,745.00
Revenue from Beerbars: €94,350.00
Total: €357,295.00
Income from the Pool Villa was around 30% lower in the first half of the year, as we were unable to rent it out in part due to major renovation work. However, the renovation costs are not included here as they are covered by a reserve account. Furthermore, the personnel and maintenance costs (electricity, water, etc.) of € 450.00 per month have already been deducted from the villa's income.
Personal expenses
This includes expenses such as our health insurance, our personal "pocket money" with which each of us can do what we want, entertainment costs that include joint restaurant and bar visits, movies, concerts, etc., food and travel expenses consisting of various flight and hotel costs.
The whole thing looked like this in the second half of 2024:
Health insurance: €8,880.00
Pocket money for Mr. Barsten: €30,000.00
Pocket money for Ms. Barsten: €24,000.00
Entertainment: €13,800.00
Food: 4.500,00€
Travel expenses: 32.650,00€
Total: 113.800,00€
General expenses
This includes expenses such as taxes in Thailand on the income from the beer bars, taxes in Indonesia on salary and rental income from the pool villa, staff costs and ancillary costs (electricity, water, etc.) for our pool villa in Bali, which we use ourselves.
In detail, these expenses in the first half of 2024 were as follows
Taxes Thailand: €19,913.50
Taxes Indonesia: €49,966.96
Personnel: €2,640.00
Incidental costs pool villa: €1,380.00
Donation mosque: 2.400,00€
Donation animal shelter: 2.400,00€
Support family: 3.600,00€
Total: 77.260,46
Purchases
Another item in our finances are purchases, which were as follows in the first half of the year:
Audi Q7: €85,000.00
2x BMW F750 GS: 22.800,00€
Total: 107.800,00€
Of course, we track our income/expenses in much more detail than shown here, but as this would go beyond the scope of this article, we have simplified everything a little.
Summary
Income: €357,295.00
Personal expenses: -113,660.00 €
General expenditure: -77,260.46
Purchases: -107,800.00€
Remaining amount: € 58,575.00
Our budget for the first half of 2024 therefore amounted to a total of 357.295,00€ which included expenses in the amount of 298.720,46€ were incurred.
Of our budget in the first half of 2024, a total of 58.574,54€ which will go into our reserves and either be invested in shares/ ETFs or used to purchase additional land or properties in the future.
Reserves
Since I only track my small "pocket money deposit" at GQ, here is a brief overview of our various reserves, which are deposited with different banks in Indonesia, Singapore and Dubai, as of June 30, 2024:
Real estate reserve: 150.000,00€
For emergencies involving our real estate and the Beerbars, such as unforeseeable damage, renovations, conversions, etc. The target amount of the real estate reserve is € 200k.
Emergency reserve: 450.000,00€
In case I lose my job or something unforeseeable happens personally. The target amount of the emergency reserve is €450k.
Deposits: 1.029.650,00€
Our goal is to increase the above-mentioned deposits to a total of €2 million by 2030.
Should I no longer feel like working at some point, the deposits, the income from our pool villa & beer bars and our German pension entitlements will hopefully provide us with a pretty good standard of living.
Property investments: 230.000,00€
This is one of my wife's smaller gimmicks. She buys land on the outskirts of large cities or in future development areas, holds it for 3-5 years and then sells it for at least 50% profit. As long as it makes her happy and we don't lose any money, I'm OK with it.
Conclusion
All in all, we are definitely happy with the decision to move our main residence to Indonesia and wouldn't want to change it.
However, we didn't emigrate "blindly" or unprepared. My wife comes from Indonesia and is familiar with the conditions and regulations, and I have had an unrestricted residence and work permit for years. Furthermore, my wife's family lives "next door" and we have also made some very important friends over the last few years, so we really feel at home here. We commute back and forth between our pool villa in Bali, the beer bars in Thailand and our small bungalow on Java and enjoy life and time with the people who are important to us whenever possible.
As we are in a good financial position and earn enough money through our business even without a permanent job and have correspondingly high reserves, we could sit back and relax for several years without an income in an emergency and not have to worry financially or even return to Germany.
As I have almost no family left in Germany with whom I have a connection and most of my friends have always been spread all over the world, I don't feel like I'm missing anything from a social perspective. Personally, I mainly miss the delicious German bread, fresh, crispy rolls and good sausage from the butcher, which you can also get here, but not with the taste you are used to.
What I don't miss at all is the German bureaucracy, politics and the typical German envy that we unfortunately got to know far too often. My wife always said: "In Germany, you shouldn't show that you're doing well" and somehow I have to agree with her.
So that's enough text for now, I hope I haven't bored you too much, for those who like it here's a Sankey diagram and if you have any questions, please just ask in the comments.
PS: As you can see, I'm still calculating in euros; force of habit, which makes it much easier for me to deal with the different currencies we're dealing with.
