---
aliases: ["Set Up Investing Framework"]
Is A: Project
Belongs to: "[[24q1]]"
Advances: "[[responsibility-personal-finance]]"
Status: Done
Owner: "[[person-luca-rossi]]"
---
# Set Up Investing Framework

## Overview

As Refactoring's revenue grew, it became clear that personal finance needed a more structured approach. This project defined a personal investment policy statement (IPS) and set up automated monthly contributions to a diversified portfolio of index funds. The goal was to remove emotion and ad-hoc decision-making from investing and replace it with a simple, repeatable system.

Before this project, savings were sitting in a low-yield savings account with no clear allocation strategy. The framework needed to be simple enough to maintain alongside a busy content business, while being sophisticated enough to actually build long-term wealth. Research phase took about three weeks, followed by account setup and automation.

## Goals

- Draft a personal Investment Policy Statement defining asset allocation, risk tolerance, and rebalancing rules
- Open a brokerage account with a low-cost provider (selected Degiro for European access and low fees)
- Set up automated monthly contributions (20% of net monthly revenue)
- Define a target allocation: 70% global equities (VWCE), 20% bonds (VAGF), 10% cash reserve
- Create a quarterly review checklist to assess allocation drift and rebalance if needed

## Key decisions

- **Passive index funds, not individual stocks.** After extensive reading (Bogle, Bernstein, Housel), decided that passive investing is the only approach that makes sense for someone whose primary income comes from a content business. Time spent stock-picking is time not spent on the newsletter.
- **Single accumulating ETF for equities (VWCE).** Rather than splitting across US, European, and emerging market ETFs, chose a single all-world accumulating ETF. Simplicity reduces friction and the urge to tinker.
- **20% of revenue, not a fixed amount.** Tying contributions to revenue percentage means the system scales with business growth and naturally reduces in leaner months without requiring manual adjustment.

## Notes

- The hardest part was actually committing to a framework and stopping the research phase. There is an infinite amount of personal finance content online, and it is easy to fall into analysis paralysis. Set a hard deadline of February 15 to finalize the IPS and stop reading.
- [[person-marco-bianchi]] shared his own investment framework, which was helpful for validating the approach. His suggestion to keep a separate 6-month emergency fund in a high-yield savings account was incorporated.
- The [[24q2-stock-screener]] experiment later in the year was a brief detour into individual stock analysis, but it reinforced the decision to stick with passive investing. The time spent did not justify the marginal (and uncertain) returns.
- Quarterly reviews are tracked as part of [[responsibility-personal-finance]]. The first two reviews in 2024 showed minimal drift, confirming that the set-and-forget approach works as intended.
