Jasper Vekeman

Qing
Welcome to the Freelance Forward Podcast, a show that helps you create and run your own business to enjoy the freedom, control and flexibility it brings. I’m your host, Ching Chen, a freelance conference interpreter and language instructor. On this show, I sit down with fellow freelancers from different industries to discuss lessons learned, ideas and strategies, chat, challenges and opportunities so the rest of us can connect, share best practices and gather tools and resources to move our freelance business forward. Thanks for spending some time with us today and let’s get started.

Qing
As a young journalist at the newspaper De Tijd, I was sent out to burst the bubbles of commercial talks about sustainable investing. At that time, the prevailing belief was that sustainable investing must be greenwashing. But is that really the case? If there’s one lesson I learned from my studies, it’s that the way we organize our economy is not a natural law. We make choices, therefore, sustainability should also be a possibility. Later as a journalist at the magazine Trends, I often wrote about new business models and different perspectives on the economy and the financial system. This is how I have been swayed into sustainable investing, because I believe that we can make sustainable choices even with our money, because I believe that sustainable investing makes sense, that it’s feasible, but also because I find it necessary. What’s the alternative anyway? Meanwhile, I remain committed to the mindset with which I approached my first interviews about sustainable investing that is; never cynical, always constructively critical. Does that introduction sound kind of familiar to you?

Qing
Does this sound familiar?

Jasper
It’s been a while since I’ve first heard it. I wrote it, like, two years or something. But, yes, I do know where it comes from.in-house

Qing
Yeah. You know where it comes from?

Jasper
Yeah. I don’t read it often myself, of course, but it’s from our website.

Qing
Yes, exactly. I’m going to tell our listeners where it actually comes from. So I just translated Jasper’s own words in the About US or About Me section from the website of Sustainable investing, from Dutch into English, because I just find it so well written.

Jasper
Cool. Thank you.

Qing
Because as many people know, I’m a huge advocate of speaking concisely and clearly, so I’m really fond of that writing style of yours.

Jasper
All right, thank you so much. Starts with a nice compliment.

Qing
It’s quite different from what I would usually do to introduce my guest. So how about we shake things up a little bit today? You tell us who you are, what you do, and the idea behind changing paths from a fairly stable, well paid, in house position to the world of freelancing.

Jasper
Yeah, well, my name is Jasper. I work as a financial journalist about half the time, and another half of my time I spend in a bit of not even a startup yet, but it’s a project that I do together with a lecturer from a university college, and that is that we try to train people how they can make more sustainable financial choices. And so I divide a bit my time between those two. I’m still editor in chief of a magazine that is on investing, but not on sustainability or not enough, because I do have a say in it and I try to push it there a little bit as well. But it’s more a classical approach, I would say, to investing. And then in my other side project, I am trying to make it more normal for people to also take sustainability into account when you also make financial decisions because I believe that a lot of people find sustainability important. They do make little adaptations in their life. They will eat less meat, for example, or they will fly less, or so they take questions like the climate into account, but not enough when it comes to financial decisions. in-houseSo that’s what we tried to change. Me not alone, of course. There are a lot of people in that field, but that’s what we tried to do. Yeah.

Qing
And what was the motivation or the rationale behind you quitting your in-house journalist position job to start Freelancing?

Jasper
To start freelancing. It was actually because I did a travel for a year, so I rode my bike to China from Brussels.

Qing
It started from there?

Jasper
Yeah. So we left from Brussels and went on a year, a trip for the bike. And in the meantime, I still wanted to work a bit. And so actually, Freelancing gave me the freedom to travel and still work. Not too much, but still I write about my travels and I wrote still economic articles for the same magazine that I quit my job in that year, I discovered the many perks of working as a freelancer. So that’s how I started, and when I came back, I had the offer to start somewhere. But there’s advantages and disadvantages and I put them on a scale. There was definitely, at this moment in my life, I’m very comfortable as a freelancer.

Qing
And this question might be a little bit off topic, but I really want to know what is the biggest takeaway for you from that cycling trip all the way from Belgium to China as the destination?

Jasper
I think that just how nice people are. It’s because you’re on a bicycle and people are amazed, like, what are you doing here on your bicycle? And just people are so friendly in the sense that they would just offer you tea or it’s basically in a lot of cultures, so it’s not one country that stands out in that field. It’s just everywhere where you come, people are just a lot of times pleased to see you. They’re curious, they’re friendly. If you want to pitch your tent somewhere or you ask, Can I stay here? A lot of times people will say, yes. I didn’t have that many no’s, actually.

Qing
And do you feel the hospitality or the curiosity more I mean, the further you go to the east or it has nothing much to do with.

Jasper
I think, hospitality you can find in Belgium and Germany as well. I think there is more the curiosity because you become stranger when you’re all packed up and you have four bags on a bicycle and you’re in the mountains of Tajikistan, then people are more astonished, like what do you do here or something.

Qing
And what do you tell them when they ask you what are you doing here?

Jasper
Well, with a couple of words and with a lot of signs because conversations was not always that easy. We try to tell why we’re there and where we come from. Just have a nice conversation with people as well. Like we try to ask questions like how are your children and how is your life? I was already thinking a lot about climate and then we were trying to see how people deal with it and how do they just survive and live day to day.

Qing
Exactly. So I’m just thinking about you must have seen a lot of different ways of living. Some people are just living on the edge with the bare minimum. Do you think their ways of living are in a way more sustainable than us?

Jasper
Yeah, they have less that consumer mentality, I guess. So in that sense it’s more sustainable, but it’s not that these people also want to have a more comfortable life. And it’s one of the questions, of course, how can we have a planet with 8 billion people and all have a good living standard? So it’s not that you can expect from other people in other places. You have to stay poor or something. So I think people aspire as well a certain level of material richness, but it’s a bit of cliche, but a lot of times people are just pretty happy. That’s at least the sense I got.

Qing
And what does sustainability mean to you?

Jasper
That is a good question. How we try not to define it that much. There is the definition of the UN, for example, right, where sustainability is just provide for generations today with respect for generations to come. I think that for me, that is a pretty good definition in the sense. And there’s probably tons of people at the event who actually thought about it.

Qing
Before they published, what, ten SDGs on.

Jasper
Yeah, there’s 17 SDGs in that sense. I think that for me, that’s a good definition. It’s just okay, we have to provide for today, but also think about the many, many people that will come after us and they should have a livable planet still too.

Qing
I heard this architect or interior designer or furniture designer, I don’t remember what his exact title is from this Netflix series called The Future of, for example, the Future of Health, the Future of Fashion. One episode is dedicated to architecture. So they’re talking about how we try to build in a more sustainable way in the future, the future of skyscrapers, basically, he said sustainability for me means wanting less, doing less, so you need less and consume less. What do you think?

Jasper
I think that’s part of the story, absolutely. For sure us living in a pretty rich country in the west that we should maybe be happy with a bit less. I think a lot of people could do with a little bit. I get my happiness from buying stuff and all that but I don’t think we will with a philosophical answer to the question we will not solve the many challenges in the world. So I do see what he means, but I guess it’s more complicated. It’s part of the answer but not the full answer.

Qing
I would probably like to start by quoting a sentence from your bio. You said at that time the prevailing belief was that sustainable investing must be greenwashing. So would you mind explaining to us what greenwashing actually is?

Jasper
Yeah, greenwashing very basically means that you pretend something to be more sustainable than it actually is.

Qing
So in the sense of you meaning us, as individuals as well as no.

Jasper
Like a bank or in my world and of finance, it’s a bank claiming that a financial product, for example, is sustainable or investment is sustainable while it’s not, or at least not as sustainable as they like it to be or pretend it to be. And I think what I mean that was a period in 2012 when I started as a journalist. You also saw this whole boom in ESG investing and all different types of investing. I’ll explain you a bit more about that later. Yeah, I’ve worked with very critical journalists and that’s very good because that’s your job as a journalist. But also I struggled with that feeling like, okay, but it’s easy to break things down and everything sustainable or sustainable finance must be greenwashing. And I was like, but why? There must be also, don’t get me wrong, there is a huge problem with greenwashing definitely in the financial sector, but there must be people who take this serious and who actually believe that you can make a difference with your money. And that’s something I believed in as well. Like it matters what you do with your money. And so I wanted to get past only that critical, having that critical attitude or something.

Jasper
Sometimes for me, journalists in general can be critical but sometimes it becomes cynical, I think for sure after many years.

Qing
Because you hate something for the sake of hating it.

Jasper
Yeah, exactly. So they’re not actually listening anymore or giving the person they talk to actually a chance because they just say up front like it’s going to be greenwashing and they’re actually not having a second look. That’s something I noticed in the beginning of my career like everything about sustainability had to be greenwashing. A lot of it was probably but still, I thought we had to give it a fair chance and had a second glance at it. Maybe.

Qing
Actually I heard about this concept of greenwashing not long ago, but okay, I’m a dummy in the field, so this actually shows how poorly informed I am in this field. self-employedThat’s why I’m learning a lot from you today. So I was actually interpreting the competition summer school for the College of Europe. So the participants that day, they were paying a visit to DG competition at the European Commission and they were discussing how could market players, competitors, especially competitors, contribute to green transition through collaboration and how greenwashing can be avoided. But of course, from the viewpoint of legislation, regulation and law enforcement. So before we delve into the topic of sustainable investing, let’s focus on a very important aspect of financial planning, especially for us freelancers, that is retirement plans and pension saving. We all know that for our listeners from abroad, state pension alone in Belgium will not give us enough support for a good quality of life during our retirement years. I don’t know if you have already calculated your pension. I don’t dare to do that.

Jasper
I had a first look a couple of years ago, but then I never looked again once I started freelancing. Yeah, there’s a big difference between what somebody who’s working as an independent gets and somebody who works actually for the state.

Qing
Yeah. If your future of retirement days totally depend on that, then the future is just dire.

Jasper
Yeah, absolutely. It’s still a system that thinks that everybody who works as an independent will become rich or something, or is hugely successful or something. And it’s also from a time when people didn’t have mixed careers, while a lot of us will work a couple of years in one system and then switch become a freelancer and then maybe it’s from back in the days, but reforming here is not always that easy.

Qing
In Belgium there are some specifically designed retirement planning options for the self-employed people to supplement their state pension, such as VAPZ, that’s what we call the Voluntary Pension Scheme in English or IPT, Individual Retirement Savings Plan and some other options. So how about you walk us through the available options out there and also share with us how you are saving at the moment for pension?

Jasper
Okay, I can do that, but I want to give a disclaimer first that I’m absolutely not a financial advisor, of course. So I can explain a bit from my situation, I can explain from my financial journalistic background a bit how the systems work. But I’m not for anybody to say like, you have to do this, you have to do that. So basically you have this what they call the third pillar and that is where you save yourself. And there is a fiscal tax break. Right? So that is a scheme that the government actually promotes, not only for freelancers, but for everybody. Then there is the second pillar and a lot of people will do that through their work. But since as a freelancer you’re not employed, you can do that yourself. You call De Vrij Aanvullend Zelfstandig Pension in Dutch. That is something that you can do yourself. And so that’s the three pillars that we call of the Belgian pension system. The first one is the government one. Then there is the one you normally have through your employer, but as an independent you do it yourself. And then there is the third one is with a tax break.

Jasper
So part of what you pay into you can deduct from your taxes.

Qing
Is there a ceiling?

Jasper

Yeah, I don’t know the numbers, I didn’t learn the numbers by heart, but it’s on a whole year or something. You can choose between two amounts, right? One is around €900 a month a year and the other one is 1200 and you get 25% or 30%. Don’t completely quote me on those numbers, I didn’t learn them by heart. But that’s not a large amount of money either, right? So that’s also not going to give you the safest pension or anything. So then there is the fourth pillar and that is actually what you save yourself. It’s just basically without government involvement, no pension funds or anything because okay, like the third pillar you get the tax deduction, but a lot of times the costs are high. So sometimes they call it that. It’s almost a subsidy for banks. So it’s a good system and a couple of things. And then I’ll come to what I actually do. What is good about the state system and the tax. It forces people to have discipline to choose. Every month or the start of the year, I’ll set a certain amount of money aside and I leave it there until I’m 60.

Jasper
65 of probably our generation will have to work even a bit longer. And so it’s about that discipline and not making emotional emotions, I’ll tell you a bit later. Emotional decisions, sorry. What I do myself is I put every month a little bit of money on the site and every time on the same date and I buy very cheap. It’s called index funds, exchange traded funds. I could maybe later explain a bit what that it is. So that is a form of investing that I do myself. It’s very diversified. It’s diversified in time as well. I do it every month. You can also choose every three months or something. And I really pay a lot of attention to costs because that is super important for in the end your return. So you want to invest cheap. That’s basically well diversified, cheap investing. That is what I try to do.

Qing
So before we dive a little bit deeper into that. So you do index with a bank or broker?

Jasper
Yeah, with an online broker. Yeah. And I do it sustainable, of course, because that’s what I’m trying to promote as well. And that’s also possible with those index funds.

Qing
Yeah, it’s okay that we’re missing some accurate numbers because there is a resource called Curvo, C-U-R-V-O I’m not sure if you have heard of that before.

Jasper
I’ve heard of him.

Jasper
It’s quite a useful resource for our listeners to evaluate different retirement plans because it’s also available in English, so you can see what kind of state pension you’re going to receive as a freelancer, how to boost your pension through different pension plans, how to calculate your pension and how to retire. Or let’s use the buzzwords how to achieve financial freedom through index investing. There I’ll link all the resources mentioned today on our show notes so you can have a look at them. Now. I had a look at the responses from our freelancers in Belgium community members on how they save for pension. I see a lot of different combinations of options. Of course, it varies based on your individual financial goals to achieve, your risk profiles…

Jasper
How much super important, how much risk do you want to take. That’s why I gave the disclaimer as well. There’s just so many different options and it really depends on you personal, like how much risk do you want to take? Also your horizon. Right. Are you saving for your pension or maybe you want to buy a house in five to ten years? Like your answers, what you’re saving for is completely different. Good that you mentioned that.

Qing
Yeah. And also depends on the personal situation. How much money do you have?

Jasper
Exactly.

Qing
Despair, to name a few, to give our audience an idea what your peers are doing to save for pension. Yeah, there are different combinations. For example, people say I do pension saving plans plus ETF, I do real estate plus blue chip stocks, I do VAPZ plus IPT, plus traditional pension saving with tax deduction plus TAK 21 product. And what’s left goes into some ETFs and a tiny bit of cryptocurrency. So basically what is most or often brought up as ways to grow their savings are supplementary pension saving plans, stocks, ETFs, index investing, crypto trading, talk 21 and real estate. I don’t even know what TAK 21 or TAK is…

Jasper
It’s an insurance contract. I’m not going to get into the details, but it’s also just a way underlaying. There is stocks and bonds, basically. But that TAK 21 goes through an insurer. It’s some sort of investment fund, actually.

Qing
Probably when you’re in the intermediate stage of investing, that is something that would just come into your mind.

Jasper
It’s a financial product that is really pushed through the banks and insurers. So I think that’s why people get it. But it’s one of the things that I would say it’s probably quite costly.

Qing
A lot of times are high.

Jasper
Yeah, exactly.

Jasper
Okay.

Jasper
But yeah, I don’t want to be like, you never should have a TAK 21. There is advantages to it.

Jasper
I’m going to ask you some very specific questions about it.

Jasper
Okay. Yeah.

Qing
It’s also pretty funny to see some comments. Like people say, oh, I know nothing about “Belegging” and I’m terrible at following up, so I’m just going to take all my money back and put it in real estate.

Jasper
It’s a huge problem. That’s why we started our project, of course, because we don’t give financial advice. We just want to train people. We find it so important. People know so many things about so many different topics, but when it comes to finance that, there’s just a huge problem in our educational system.

Jasper
I totally agree.

Jasper
Yeah. People need to notice because it’s so important. And for our generation, definitely, we know that our pension will not be enough, but how many people still come to that pension age and suddenly realize, like, oh, I should have saved up way more? Or then the only thing they have is their house. And if you have a long horizon, like if you have at least 30, 40 years ahead of you, you can take some risk and you don’t need a lot of money for it. That’s something we always say as well. You don’t need to be rich. You can start investing from €25 a month or €50 a month.

Qing
Talking about houses, there are also people saying, well, with such a shortage in the housing market in Belgium, it seems morally wrong to me to use a property to make money from when I have friends struggling to buy or to rent. Also, there are people saying, oh, I’d rather think about investing when we manage to get to a financially stable point, hitting that four figures in a bank account. So that leads to my next question when or how early should we start investing? Do you stand by the general advice that it’s never too early to start investing? Let’s say I have well, of course, setting the emergency funds, the buffer aside.

Jasper
Yes, exactly.

Qing
I have twenty k in my saving account. What should be the amount that I feel comfortable with to invest? And where should I put my money? Should I put my money all on ETFs, all on stocks? Or you say half stocks half trade-offis always to diversifybonds or funds because they say, don’t put all the eggs in one basket.

Jasper
Exactly.

Qing
To diversify the risk, blah, blah, blah. Or perhaps I own two ETFs, one stock, one bond, because they say, oh, we pick the safest borrowers. That’s the state. Right. What are the pros and cons of each option and how do we combine them to minimize the risks while having the best returns possible? Also, I don’t want it to be too complicated.

Qing
Yeah, exactly. Bob, that is a long question. Yeah, there is trade-offs, right? So there is not one right answer. First, start us with the buffer. What do you want to set aside? A lot of economists will answer something around six months of your net income that you have aside. For sure. As a freelancer, you can maybe choose a little bit more because you have less of a parachute or less insured maybe, or something. But that’s a first personal choice. A second choice is really something. The first rule is always diversify, diversify, diversify. So you want to have probably a little bit of everything, but the contrary to that is costs. So you have to pay attention to that because if you start buying lots of stocks, then you’ll pay a lot of costs as well. Yeah, it’s really hard for me to say it has to be like that, but let’s break it down. When you start to me it makes a lot of sense to, for example, start with some ETFs and then in ETFs you can have bonds or stocks. Both are possible. So you know the difference. Right. The stock is you’re an owner of a company, you take a bit more risk when a bond you give actually a credit to a company, so there is less risk and the returns are normally a bit lower as well.

Jasper
So you can diversify between those two. That’s still the traditional portfolio, right? A little bit.

Qing
Hold them for the long term.

Jasper
Yes, exactly. What you don’t want to try to do, individual stocks are hard unless you’re very interested and you want to make that homework yourself. Right. Like you try to analyze a company, what is the return, so how much profit does it make, what is the margins it gets? That takes quite a lot of time. It’s doable for some people, it’s fun.

Qing
Part time job.

Qing
Yeah, exactly. So I would say if you’re one of the people who say like, I just want to save for my pension, I’m not interested in finance, I would say stay away from individual stocks. So buy in a stock ETF. It’s basically like an investment fund, right? The only difference is that investment funds, active funds, then that’s the difference. Active funds will come with higher costs, a lot of times around 2% in Belgium. So that means if the fund goes up three or 4% a year, it’s not a bad year then. But if 2% actually goes to costs, then the half of the return goes to the fund manager or the bank. So what does an ETF It’s not actively managed, which means it follows an index. Now it’s going to get a little bit complicated, but for example, in Belgium you have the BEL20. It’s not that famous, but the most famous one in the world is the SMP 500. What is the SMP500? It’s the 500 biggest American companies on the New York Stock Exchange. So what does an ETF on the SMP 500 do? You just buy and one click a little piece of all those 500 companies.

Jasper
So you can see immediately there is no fund manager who’s trying to make a choice out of those 500. Let’s say, like I believe that these hundred out of the 500 will actually do better. And so I make this active choice, and so you have to pay me 2% for that. With an ETF. You just say, Look, I’m happy with owning a little bit of every 500. And there is tons of research that every time confirms that actually it’s super hard to beat the market. No fund manager, he can do it maybe one year, but ten years, there is almost no fund manager who will actually do better than the market. So you can just follow the market by simply buying the SMP 500. But there is also the MSCI World, there is the Europe stock 600. There is tons and tons of indexes that you can follow. And so it’s the easiest way to invest in stocks but also in bonds. It’s just buying an ETF. And so the big advantage is that you don’t have to make choices yourself. There’s little preparation and little costs, because.

Qing
I feel like a lot of us, including me, myself, shy away from the world of investing. We’re afraid to make decisions because we think things are so freaking complicated, and more complexity in the world of investing is not necessarily better. The best analogy for me to understand it would be like for a girl, you have a closet of clothes, and every morning when you open it, you just don’t know. You still don’t know what to wear. So that’s what I’m working on right now, capsule wardrobe. The less you have, the easier the choices are. I think it applies to investing as well. Right.

Jasper
They love to present it complicated as well. That’s why we started, because then they need your help, actually.

Qing
You mean the financial advisors?

Jasper
Yeah, financial industry in general. They use jargon, right? They use a language that is not aimed at really explaining to you. So the advantage is that what we say to people who follow our Elearning is, for example, start with small amounts. You don’t have to if you come back to your example of €20,000, start with like 200 or €300 from that. Yeah, of course you have small amounts. Get a bit of the hang of it. And then once you have a couple of ETFs that you like that fit your profile, that you say, okay, this is something I feel comfortable with. This is, I think, an appropriate instrument to actually achieve my goals. You have to start with your goals. Is your goal your pension? Is it extra capital? So you do a little bit of homework, you answer a couple of questions to yourself, and once you have that, it’s absolutely. I think you can easily say, like, with 20 minutes a month or something, that’s done. There is no work in there anymore.

Qing
And what do you mean by you get more comfortable with it? Does it mean you gain more knowledge, you’re better informed? And on top of that, you nurtured yourself? A habit of. Investing on a regular basis and consistently. What do you mean by more comfortable?

Jasper
Yeah, I think that with the risks, with how financial markets move, like, okay, it can happen that your money will go down 3% in a day and then the next day. Yeah, understanding the risk and also understanding that in the longer term, it doesn’t matter what the news says, the news cycle during a day, if you’re really saving up for that pension, you don’t have to follow it up on a daily basis. You can feel comfortable in the sense that you’re well diversified, that you took something for the longer run, you didn’t pay too many costs. You don’t need to try to time the market, like they say. Like, is this a good moment to buy? Is this not good? You never know.

Qing
When the market goes up, people tend to, I don’t know, mess up with their portfolio.

Jasper
Exactly. People are and that’s one of the things that I like about ETFs and the decision that you say, like, look, I’m doing this, for example, always the first day of the month, don’t try to time it like, oh, maybe tomorrow will be a better day, or the day after. Who knows? It’s financial markets. They always move, and you never know why. You can explain it, but you can’t predict it. And so always when people ask me questions about how should I invest, they always ask, Is this a good moment? I don’t know. Nobody knows. So you should not try to answer that question. The best moment is just nicely spread out through time. Why not? Every couple of months? For example, if you say, I can only save €50 a month, then you could say, like, well, I wait every three to six months until my amount is a little bit bigger, until I’ve put the €50 altogether to about €300. For example, another good line of thinking, like, how much money do I need? Is that the costs you pay should not be more than 1%.

Qing
Okay?

Jasper
Yeah. So, like, for example, a lot of online brokers in Belgium, the biggest ones, ask, like, seven and a half euros transaction fee. So that means that you want to look at around 750. So then if you say, I can only save up 750 every six months or something, okay, that’s possible too. Or you can go to a cheaper broker. They exist too. Does that make sense?

Qing
Totally. I’m just doing the calculation here. So if I’m a beginner investor, I have 20,000 to spend, and I start with a tiny amount, let’s say 10%. That would be €2000. Where should I stop? I already have my emergency fund.

Jasper
Should I invest just all of it also there. So I would start with a smaller amount. See how that feels to you. Because for a lot of people, money is for me, too. Money is about emotions, right? So if you can’t sleep with it, or you think, I take a risk now that is too big. So say that you have your 20,000, you put your buffer aside, and you’ll put that without any previous knowledge or preparation or anything just in the market. You might start looking at it, panic, get out of the market when it comes down, and start taking that emotional decisions that you want to avoid. So that’s why I say start with €200, an amount that you feel comfortable if I lose this, it’s okay, you’re not going to lose it. That’s not the point. But at least you feel comfortable not checking it all the time or something. And then the next time you could start with 200, and then the next time you do €1000 and you gradually build it up with your experience, you’ll get the hang out of it. It’s not rocket science to what people sometimes think.

Jasper
Like I said, they like to pretend it’s super complicated, but it’s not necessarily.

Qing
But that strategy of feeling whether you’re comfortable with it and how comfortable you are with it, I think maybe we should start with that small amount that you mentioned and add it up to a certain level where you ask yourself, if I lost this amount of money overnight, how would I feel? Would that help?

Jasper
Yeah, maybe. It’s not like if you’re in this, your money is not suddenly going to disappear because you’re so well diversified through these ETFs, like, you’re not in an individual stock. And that’s why diversification is so essential to what you need to do, because if you invest in a single company, that is the risk that your money will disappear one day. Or if you put it in a single bond, the issuer won’t pay your money back because, I don’t know, he goes bankrupt or there is a fire or whatever happens to a single project. So through that diversification, you should not be too anxious that you will actually lose all your money. What could happen is that, I don’t know, some pandemic breaks out and the stock exchange crashes 30%. That does happen, apparently, yeah.

Qing
But preparing for the worst is not bad per se, because it’s like, if I lose that amount of money tomorrow, would I still be able to sleep for the next five nights? If I can, then, yeah, let’s go for it.

Jasper
If you lose your sleep over where your money is, it’s probably not in the right instrument. I think that is a good lesson. Yeah. If you’re awake at night about your money, then you’re probably taking too much risks for your own appetite. And that is a personal question. There is no shame when you say, like, I want my money in a savings account. Okay, you might be losing a little bit of money there through inflation, and the interest rate is too low, so it doesn’t compensate what you lose in purchasing power. But on the other hand, losing your sleep every night. That’s costly too. As a freelancer you don’t want to have that too.

Qing
Obviously investing choices alone may not completely eradicate fossil fuel dependence, right?

Jasper
No.

Qing
So what can we do, Jasper, as individuals from an investing perspective to help contribute to a greener future? In other words, what are the sustainable investment options available and how can we align our values with our investment choices?

Jasper
Also there are tons of different choices and that’s why we build our course to explain that to people that it is a personal choice. Like what I find sustainable doesn’t need to be what you find sustainable. For example, we can have other opinions, for example, let’s say about nuclear energy or something. I think the thinking around nuclear energy has shifted quite a lot with a lot of people because of the energy crisis. So I think the consensus against nuclear energy was bigger a couple of months ago. So you can see that the same with weapons, for example, there’s tons of people who would say like I don’t want my money to be in weapons and I understand that and on the other hand there will people now like, well, that’s naive see what’s happening in the world, but I’ll make it more specific. So we talk about seven strategies and so the basic form, and that’s also the oldest form of sustainable investing is that you’re going to exclude certain things, that is, I don’t want my money to be in oil anymore, which is I think a lot of people will curte that.

Jasper
Does that change the world? We can discuss about that but so that’s only the basic form. Then another form is that you’re going to score companies and that’s the ESG scores where there’s tons of criticism. I think some are rightly, so others not. But basically you’re going to look at a company and say how does it perform on the environment, on social policies and how does it treat its personnel, for example, and on governance. And so companies get a score and you say like I only want to invest in the companies with the best scores in every sector. You get that. That’s what they call the best in class approach. And then on the other side of the spectrum, it’s what’s called impact investing and that is growing rapidly. It’s only a smart part of the market now, but it’s basically where you say I want to contribute to actual solutions. So I’m not excluding certain things, I’m not looking at every sector what company has a product or a service that actually we need to find solutions for the problems today and that’s what I want.

Jasper
Technology.

Jasper
Exactly. It can be that. Also then you have to watch out that you’re diversified enough. Of course you don’t want to put all your money in some alternative. And hydrogen for example, because they promised the golden future. So you have to still think as a normal investor, but there is options for anybody. Like there’s tons of different shades of green out there,

Qing
But we talked about eSG before, and I said I’ll talk to you about it later, because we hear very often the criticizing voice that say, for example, 80% of your money will be invested anyway in fossil energy mining or other ecologically unsustainable businesses. While the remaining 20% left might not be invested in Earth destroying businesses, it will probably be used for questionable ones. And people also say, yeah, funds are not transparent enough about their ESG criteria. And the majority of the people who opt in green pension funds don’t even realize it could be a sham on its own. And there are also scientific research backing that. I was listening to a podcast called “How to Money” and they’re talking about simple to complex investment options. So they quoted this research from Columbia University. So obviously, there are a lot of prestigious institutions around the world doing research on that. Chicago University, London Economics School of Economics and they find that, for example, the ESG funds perform poorly on one hand, in financial terms, fees are quite high, and opting in those does not give investors good returns, nor necessarily improve corporate governance and or environmental impact. So what do we do?

Qing
I mean, how do we ethically boost our pensions or savings? I think you mentioned the ESG score, right? So are there guiding principles for us to follow? I mean, resources, scientifically backed findings that could really inform us on how to make better, if not more correct choices on sustainable investing?

Jasper
Yeah, it’s a really tough topic, ESG. You mentioned a couple, but there is probably like thousands of research papers investigating, for example, the link between the return and so what we always say is probably true sustainable investing, you’ll probably get around the same return. So we never say your returns will be higher, but I don’t think they necessarily will be lower either. Sometimes the costs are higher, sometimes not. More fundamentally, what I have a problem with, with the whole system, for example, is that they really look like through a risk lens. So the question a lot of times that will be asked is what is the risk of climate change to this company? Well, for me it’s way more important. What is actually this company contributing to climate change? I don’t care. So it’s a very investor’s perspective and that’s what people should understand as well. It’s trying to assess the risks. Also, for example, on the GE, on the governance level is what is the risk a company will be in a scandal like Volkswagen with dieselgate, for example. So they’re trying to assess risks. This doesn’t say anything about how does this company contribute to a better world.

Jasper
Then you need to look with another lens and that’s that impact lens. What I find frustrating sometimes a bit is that people are using ESG as a synonym for sustainable investing? Well, it’s just a form of sustainable investing and probably not a very sustainable investing because it’s that risk lens that they use. So for many people I think it is a disappointment when they look in their funds like they have an ESG fund and then they see there is an oil company in there and they’re like how is this possible? That’s why we need to educate people. That’s what our project is all about. You need to understand what your bank is selling you. When your banker says this is an ESG fund he means we’re looking through this, we give ESG scores and then they can it’s not necessarily means that they’re excluded. That’s the first thing that I said. The exclusion the oldest form. If it doesn’t say we exclude every fossil then they will use this ESG scores to just to be the most sustainable oil companies. Which is of course bullshit because there is no sustainable oil company but the most sustainable in the sense that they might invest a lot in renewable energy like Total Energies does and all of them do now.

Jasper
Right? Like we also have these windmills that we built and that’s how they end up in the best or the most sustainable companies in your fund. There is thousands of funds out there. So if you’re not happy with your fund, you need to move your money. And I think it’s a duty as first of all the regulator is doing a lot, Europe is doing a lot, a lot of changing to make this harder. Right? Like we have to stop this form of greenwashing. Absolutely. But it’s also up to savers pension savers to ask those questions. And when you buy a fund or an ETF, have a look because the rules are explained in a couple of documents and that’s the training we provide to people. Like how do you find a fund that is actually close to what you find important and to your beliefs and your values? And you have to make those personal choices. I’ve made mine, I know what I want.

Qing
And what kind of questions do you ask yourself or goals that you adhere to?

Jasper
I’m really trying for myself. Like I said, this is not advice to other people but what I’m doing, I’m trying to look with that impact lens to my personal investment. So I want to put my money in companies that have solutions that I think is important and there is ETFs who do that, there is active funds who do that, there is individual stocks, there is bonds. So every financial product you can look through that impact lens and that is because for me that is fundamental and so important that I want my money to be somewhere where I believe it’s contributing to that future.

Qing
So solution oriented companies?

Jasper
Yes, impact companies. But that is a small part of the market. So you exclude a lot. Yeah, I’m not judging on anybody who has money in a normal fund and so who is invested in oil. Just for myself, I’ve made that choice a long time ago that I don’t want my money to be in oil. That’s for me a no brainer. But.

Qing
This is probably my last question to you today. Do you know how long we’ve been chatting already?

Jasper
No, I have no idea actually.

Qing
50 minutes already. Wow, time flies.

Jasper
Yeah.

Qing
I was chatting with a friend of mine who is also a very senior freelance photographer with over 30 years of experience. It’s pretty funny that the year that he actually started freelancing was the year that I was born.

Jasper
Yeah.

Qing
So I asked him what would you have done differently if you had had a chance to start over? And he said financial literacy. He said from the get go, I want to know, I want to learn what we need to do to secure a financially viable future. So I don’t want to be freaking surprised when I get a fat bill of Social Security or a tax and not knowing what to do. So financial literacy, it’s something we don’t learn at school. Nobody has taught us that, like you said. But it’s probably one of the most important aspects that you really have to be informative of. So what are some common financial mistakes that you see people make or what kind of pitfalls that we should avoid to secure this healthy, long term viable financial stability?

Jasper
I think people need to make a plan, basically. So you start with your goal. So if you say I want to save pension, well calculate then how much would that actually mean? Do you mean then 2500 a month? Do you mean 2000 a month or do you want 4000 a month at the end of your life? And then you calculate, okay, I’ll probably have maybe another 30 years to live times twelve. So that’s what I actually need.

Qing
But does it mean in terms of numbers, the more concrete the better?

Jasper
Well, at least to form an idea, right? So if you say like, okay, you go to the government website, MyPension be, so you know then that and then you know what you need to save yourself. And so you calculate back and then you start thinking about a couple of life questions, right? Like how much risk do I want to take? I hope people say yes, but how important do I find sustainability and do I find sustainability important? And so yes, what does that mean to me? How do I want my money to be invested? And so you look for a couple of answers to do some soul searching and that doesn’t mean you have to take 3 hours or something. It’s something that will come natural. And then you starting little bit by little bit, you start to build that capital that you think you’ll need to have that safe future.

Qing
So having a plan and execute on a consistent and regular basis. Yeah.

Jasper
Why are a lot of products super popular is because they force people to do exactly that. Right. Like they buy real estate and then every month they have to pay the bank and that’s actually a form of savings. It doesn’t matter that it can be expensive or not. Like every month you pay off your house. So you actually are building on that pension pot. Same with the government sponsor, the third pillar pension. Right. People like it because they do it every month. It gives them discipline. And so you should actually try to build that yourself with the money that you the fourth pillar where you save up yourself. And if it’s a savings account, if it’s an ETF or any other financial product, try to exclude too many emotions. Like try to is this a good moment for the market to time it? Nobody knows. So yeah, there’s a couple of tricks, right? Like there is the pay yourself first principle where you say first of the month. When I actually receive the money from my clients, I put €200 aside or something. So then I paid myself for that pension first, not what’s left over at the end of the month.

Jasper
But I start with this because this is important to me, that kind of little tricks. And then you try to automise it, right? Like no looking at the market every month. You just do that of every three months. It doesn’t matter. Does that make sense?

Qing
Yeah. And I’m thinking how to summarize it. So what I say, keep it simple would be a good strategy because let’s be real, with a day to day paycheck, the amount of wealth that you have built that would actually allow you to invest with wouldn’t be a super large or uber complex portfolio. No, because if you’re there, you’ll probably need a financial advisor to take care of.

Jasper
Yeah, exactly. I’m talking about small amounts. I am also a freelance journalist. That is not the sector that pays best. And I’m working on a side project half my time and that is unpaid for.

Qing
Now that’s another topic that we can discuss maybe in one of our next episodes. Time to wrap up Jasper. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you for having me being here.

Jasper
Hope that was interesting.

Qing
I could talk to you for many more hours with many more questions, but thank you so much, I really appreciate it. For those of you who would like to learn more about Jasper Vekeman and his sustainable Investing Academy, go to Duurzaam Beleggen Academy where you will find an e learning platform with programs and webinars for all levels of investors. Beginners more advanced investors and our Dutch speaking audience can also tune in to his podcast, Het ABC Beleggen, where he answers all sorts of questions about this topic in more or less ten minutes long bite sized episodes. Anything more to add.

Jasper
Yes, that sounds perfect. Thank you.

Qing
Okay, before I let you go, next thing to accomplish on your bucket list.

Jasper
My girlfriend is pregnant so we would like to have a healthy baby boy. That would be nice. And then raise him to a fine young person. That would be nice.

Qing
That’s the cause of a lifetime on your bucket list.

Jasper
Yeah, exactly. So that’s basically what keeps us what keeps us busy. Exactly.

Jasper
Pick three people to have dinner with. Who would they be?

Jasper
Yeah, I studied history so I probably go for like grand historical figures or something.

Qing
So you majored in history back at university?

Jasper
Yeah, history and economics probably like, I don’t know, people like Cleopatra who went through the ages and you would just like to ask her like how crazy is it?

Qing
Documentary on Netflix, Cleopatra.

Jasper
Oh really? Yeah, I don’t even know that much about her, if she’s an interesting person or not. But yeah, I would like to just hey, this is what we think of you today, how much is correct? And then there is people with a huge influence like say Jesus for example. I’m not too big on religion or anything, but it would be just so fun to see the real person compared to what we made of him. True history through the 2000 years after him. This is what we made of you. And then there is probably somebody like Stalin for example. It was a bit the personification of evil or something. So you would like to just see how it is to talk to somebody who has like millions and millions of that on his conscious? Like how evil are you or something? Yeah, no, I would be interested to talk somebody like that as well.

Qing
Definitely. Best piece of advice you’ve ever been given.

Jasper
It has to do with my job, I think, because I studied history and I was way more interested in politics and not really in financial markets. I rolled into it by accident because there was an opportunity that came to me and somebody, my mentor, he’s still a close friend to me, said like you have to see this financial markets and the numbers as a summary of everything that happens in the world. And it’s true, everything that happens in the world has an impact. Like say elections in the US. Or a drought in Australia or a hurricane there. It always has an impact. So he says like financial markets are for journalists, actually super interesting to write about because they’re an excuse to write about anything in the world. And it’s true. Like you can write about basically any other topic, even sports or anything and give it a bit of an economic financial perspective. And it helped me a lot to actually grow into my job and actually starting to like that finance because for me it’s not that much about money actually. It’s about looking at the world and see what happens there.

Qing
I would like to talk to you more on that, linking the financial figures with, let’s say, a drought in Africa. After we switched off our mic, of course. So thank you so much Jasper.

Jasper
My pleasure.

Qing
Thanks for tuning in today. This is the Freelance Forward Podcast, a show by freelancers and for freelancers. If you want to be part of this journey, join the community on our Facebook group Freelancers in Belgium. Or get in touch via podcast at freelancersinbelgium be. Feel free to ask questions and suggest guests because we love your feedback. My name is Chin Chen. I hope you remember to take extra good care of yourself as you do your work out in the world. Keep on freelancing until the next episode.